


Penance

by PettyPrince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Snarry AUctoberfest 2020, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26816167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PettyPrince/pseuds/PettyPrince
Summary: Prompt fill: As Harry’s soulmate, it is up to Snape to raise him when Lily and James die. When Harry is finally old enough to complete the Bond, Snape isn’t sure he can go through with it with the boy who he has raised as a son.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 29
Kudos: 427
Collections: Snarry AUctoberfest 2020





	Penance

Severus had made many mistakes in his life, though he was young yet. His entire youth was wicked and miserable, a blot on all he came into contact with. Everything that was good, he had ruined; everything destructive he had cultivated. The only fruits of all his grand plans were a conscience racked with guilt and the lifeless body of the only friend he had ever known.

Severus staggered from the floo, to fall to his knees before Dumbledore yet again. Dumbledore had summoned him here, and Severus had no choice but to comply. He hung his head, fully expecting to be decapitated with the Sword of Gryffindor. Severus wouldn’t debase himself in a futile struggle; he knew Dumbledore would relish the opportunity to execute him.

“Rise, Severus. We have need of you yet.”

He looked up; Dumbledore was stood before his desk, grave and solemn as a hangman. Instead of the instrument of Severus’ death, he held only his wand and a scroll of parchment. Severus pulled himself to his feet, though his legs were unsteady as a fawn’s.

“What would you have me do?” He would do anything; he was little more than the old man’s indentured servant.

Dumbledore held out the scroll, the crisp parchment loud in the solemn room. “This was not my intention, Severus. He has living family yet but, alas; it must be so.”

“What are you- no. Oh, _no.”_ The scroll, unfurled, informed Severus that he was now the legal guardian of Harry James Potter. Dumbledore, too good to gloat, calmly watched Severus’ sanity fall to pieces. As he occasioned the deaths of the parents, he would be bound to raise their orphan? It was a punishment crueller than any the Dark Lord ever devised. A crucio was agony, but that agony had an end.

 _“_ Headmaster, this is _impossible._ I’m hardly fit to raise a child!”

“If this were any other child, I’d be inclined to agree. You are selfish and volatile; used to thinking of no one’s needs but your own. However, I have absolute faith that no harm will come to Harry in your care.”

“Then you’re a fool. I took the dark mark before I was twenty. I was practicing the dark arts before I received my Hogwarts letter, for _gods_ sake, please; see sense.”

“You will not harm him. He will thrive in your care, and you will be a new man. This will be the making of you, I’m sure. Don’t look so drawn, Severus, have a lemon drop.” A sweet was thrust into his hand, but there it remained. “You will simply not be able to harm him. You’re an intelligent sort, figure it out. No? The boy is your soulmate.”

Severus started to laugh, but the sweet was crushed to powder in his fist. “If this is your idea of a _joke.”_ Dumbledore didn’t answer, he only waited. Severus looked again at the scroll, and saw that it was a legally binding Ministry document. The boy really had been signed over into his care; he was the legal guardian of James Potter and Lily’s son.

“What makes you think he has anything to do with me? There must be some mistake-“

“There is no mistake, Severus. You only fool yourself into denial because you have never met young Harry. When the prophecy was revealed all manner of magical tests were performed, in an effort to reveal _anything_ that could qualify him to one day defeat Voldemort. It was revealed to us then; Lily recognised your magical signature right away.”

“Dumbledore, sir, please. You _cannot_ make me do this. I _cannot-“_

 _“_ It is not my doing, Severus. These things are out of my control entirely.”

“But when he’s of age I’ll-“ Severus counted the years with growing horror, his face ashen white. “I’ll be an old man…”

Dumbledore chuckled and laid a hand on a shoulder rigid with tension; even thick black wool could not disguise the prominent bones of the young man’s wasted frame. “You’ll not be forty. Merlin, if you think _forty_ to be old I must be dust in the wind. No, you’ll be in the very prime of your life.”

“He’ll deserve someone _his own age.”_ Severus had orphaned the wretched creature, and now he was to take his life from him? He would have no freedom; nothing but a life of misery to rival his own.

Dumbledore chuckled, and the sound made Severus want to vomit. “For all of your straining for Tom Riddle’s attention, you lay plain your Muggle upbringing. May I remind you that Wizards attain years Muggles could not dream of? Twenty years is not so much in our world. As time draws on, it will prove insignificant in the face of your connection.”

“ _Connection,_ indeed.”

“ _Yes,_ connection, Severus; something you’ve lacked.” Albus’ eyes were shining now, lapis blue and certain in his own convictions.

“You should send the boy to his family; let him be raised by the Muggles. Lily would never have allowed this; her husband would’ve had my head. It’s better if they-“

“It was the Potters’ dying wish that Harry be raised by you, among Wizards. It is their last will and testament.”

* * *

So Severus found himself in the headmasters’ office, sitting on a brocade settee with a baby in his arms. It was a tiny thing. In Hagrid’s hands he had looked as small as a newborn; but screamed and thrashed with remarkable force; those heartbroken cries nearly brought Severus himself to tears. He was still fragile and unmoored, and barely cognisant of how much his life was to change.

Severus choked back the swell of panic and accepted the wool-wrapped bundle from Hagrid’s palms. Almost instantly, the baby soothed and quieted down. The crying stopped, and the thrashing stopped with it. Severus clumsily swaddled the blanket round small limbs and peered down at the baby’s face. An angry red, jagged scar was emblazoned across his forehead and the large green eyes were still wet with tears. This small thing survived a killing curse, had thwarted the devil Severus had once pledged himself to in servitude. If he spent his whole life in penance it would not be enough.

Severus felt, then, what it was to be responsible for another living being. This baby, _Harry,_ would depend upon him for everything. If Severus were to drink himself into a stupor tonight and pass out on his floor as he had planned, Harry would not eat. If Severus shut himself away in a paralysis of misery, Harry would suffer in isolation. His actions no longer belonged to him alone, this _baby_ would suffer the consequence of his mistakes.

Severus, for the first time in his life, was humbled.

* * *

Severus could never have predicted that, the morning after Lily was murdered, he would be pushing her infant son around Tesco in a shopping trolley. He had retreated to Spinners End for the time being, shying away from the furore that would have surrounded the _boy hero_ had Severus chanced a trip to Diagon Alley.

Harry was sitting up in the child seat, alert but subdued. His scar was concealed by a rather unfortunate hat hastily transfigured from an old tea cosy, and he wore a baby-grow that was once a pillowcase. Severus was running on fumes; he hadn’t slept all night. His eyes were dry and stinging from weeping the night through; he had wept as he cast a hundred cleaning charms on every surface in his house, removed every sharp corner and covered every plug socket.

The trolley contained only the barest essentials; bread, milk, toothpaste and the like. Severus rarely visited Spinners End these days, and the entire house had an air of damp and disuse. It was no place for an infant.

He pushed the cumbersome metal contraption through the aisles, wishing he could cast a summoning charm for _baby things_ and think no more about what a one year old required. At last, Severus came to an aisle crowded with garish plastic oddities and jars of paste.

“You look a bit lost.” A woman with a toddler pulled her trolley alongside his own. She was beaming with indulgent friendliness. “My Pete would go to pieces if I left him with the baby. I don’t think he’s changed a nappy in his life.”

“How did you…“ Was the woman a witch? It seemed unlikely, but a minor legilimens could have discerned as much, vulnerable as Severus was.

“I’d recognise a sleepless night from a mile away, now. I’ve two under two.” Severus felt himself being drawn into the strange world of the caretakers of infants, and the accompanying willingness to talk to strangers. She bent down to Harry’s level, and smiled. “But you look good as gold!”

He was, really. He beamed back at the lady, who was charmed instantly. Severus had seen pictures of himself as a child and, even then, he was sullen and suspicious.

Severus was assisted in choosing all manner of apparently necessary items, and soon the trolley was full of bottles and socks and bibs. As the purchases mounted, this woman, Muggle as she clearly was, seemed to intuit that he alone would be looking after Harry. She didn’t pry, only pinned up a rather elaborate perm and peppered her more general shopping advice with tips and pieces of wisdom. A few parenting books followed some white pyjamas into the trolley.

That was not the last time Severus was stopped that day. Every old lady wanted to coo at the baby, every man wanted to commiserate the loss of his freedom. Severus had been adopted into the general fabric of life like never before.

As he meandered back to the tills, Severus wheeled past a display full of local school uniforms. One of the uniforms was a maroon blazer and trouser set with a gold school logo on the breast pocket. It was the uniform of a local boy’s school and Severus could not help but notice the resemblance to Gryffindor house colours. One day the baby would be old enough to go to school. Severus thought it best for the both of them if he attended Beaubaxtons. Severus fought to swallow around a sudden constriction in his throat; he would have to send him away, where god knows what could happen. The idea was surprisingly troubling. He turned away from the uniforms and from the question of schooling in general. He’d think about that some other time.

* * *

Severus once would have marched down Diagon Alley like the devil was at his heels, but now took care to modulate his pace to suit a shorter stride. Harry was still only three years old, but could walk well by himself. Now that he was free to roam as he pleased, he inevitably stopped at each shopfront displaying a broomstick. The boy definitely takes after his father.

He took one of Harry’s small, gloved hands to lead him away from the glass window and into Slug and Jiggers. A hundred eyes followed them through the doorway; they were stared at wherever they went. Luckily, it was only the most foolhardy who would dare to accost Harry in the streets. Severus’ grim appearance and questionable reputation sheltered Harry from the adulation openly expressed in the Prophet. The Wizard Prince was adored by all and sundry, and even Severus’ mysterious guardianship couldn’t quite dull the glory of his celebrity. Severus did what he could to manage the crowds, of course and would have done more still if his funds would stretch to legally challenging the Prophet. He refused to dip into any of the Potter inheritance; it was placed entirely in trust for Harry until his eighteenth birthday and would remain intact until Harry himself had need of it.

Severus found that one of the most effective deterrents to mindless gratitude was the covering of Harry’s scar. He must have tried two hundred different salves, tinctures and potions on that infernal scar, but it was just as vivid as the day it was inflicted. The sight of it made Severus weak with anguish. If it could not be healed, it must be covered; Severus kept Harry’s hair long for that very purpose. His hair was black and thick and blanketed the wound entirely. It was also as wavy and uncontrollable as a lion’s mane, no matter how often Severus brushed and combed it.

Severus was paying for the ingredients that would make up attempt two hundred and one at mending Harry’s scar, when he overheard the unmistakeable tutting of the Longbottom matriarch. She was with her Grandson, who she kept cosseted in robes of fur-trimmed white wool. His blond head was be-hatted in a matching white hat, trimmed with the same white fur. Severus thought it might be rabbit. She shifted her own fur stole dramatically, tossing the still-attached head over her shoulder.

“Imagine! Dressing a child in all that _black.”_ The Dowager Mrs. Longbottom was staring openly at Harry. Severus thought he looked very smart indeed in the black ensemble of matching coat-robes, gloves and patent shoes. Severus wouldn’t have been so impractical as to truss Harry up in _white_ so he could follow him around with a ready _scourgify._ The idea was preposterous in the extreme.

Harry didn’t seem to hear, or perhaps simply didn’t mind the comments, so Severus left quietly with his purchases. If he threw a rather poisonous glare in Madam Longbottom’s direction he was well within his rights, but his days of openly hexing his detractors were behind him. That would _not_ have been setting a good example, and three was such an impressionable age.

* * *

Of course, Harry wasn’t _always_ dressed in black. In the summer of Harry’s fourth year he was more often than not in a green linen short suit, trampling Severus’ herb garden. The garden had been cleared of brambles, thistles and stinging nettles and carefully re-planted with collections of useful plants. The lawn was too small to contain the boundless energy of a just-turned-four year old, so a few casualties were to be expected. Whenever the basil was trampled, Severus made pesto.

I wonder how many years I can put off the first broomstick, thought Severus, as he stood at the back door with a cup of tea. The things were positive _deathtraps._ The Prophet printed an article just last week, cataloguing the injuries sustained in the Quidditch World Cup. Severus had spent days brewing hastily owled orders for Skelegro, as if the organisers had not thought to anticipate broken bones in a professional Quidditch match.

It was the height of summer, and the roses were in full bloom. September would be upon them soon, and Severus was due to resume teaching. It had been a long sabbatical, but it was necessary to give Harry the best start in life. His every waking moment had been devoted to the child since that night three years ago. Harry had grown into a reasonably well adjusted four year old, against all odds; yet Severus was still loathe to let him out of his sight. It was characteristic of his anxious mind, but he imagined bitter Death Eaters around every corner. It was unhealthy, and could not continue. Going back to work was in both of their best interests.

* * *

That evening, Harry was in the kitchen, playing with his birthday present; a starter potions’ kit. It consisted of a small cauldron and a selection of non-volatile, non-toxic ingredients. Severus kept a strict watch on the proceedings, casting a myriad of shields over any liquid heated above room temperature.

“Sev’rus?”

“Hmm?” Severus chopped a series of flobberworms.

“Why does this one turn blue after the worms, but if the worms go in the paste it goes green?”

Severus launched into an explanation, sure that most of it went over Harry’s head. No matter, he was willing to repeat himself until it stuck.

The idea came to Severus later on, while he was reading Harry to sleep. He was quite a precocious reader, with a reading age that was easily two years beyond his peers. Severus was quite proud of that.

It took an afternoon to plan and only two weeks to write a short potions text for early years children. It answered the pressing questions Harry would pepper Severus with while brewing, introduced the basic equipment and dwelt at length upon the sorts of ingredients children were fascinated by. Details of how to dig for flobberworms were well received by Harry; one of his favourite pursuits was unearthing them from the roots of magical plants. In the past three years, Severus had become rather adept at botanical illustration after many hours spent planning his garden, and could stretch his modest abilities to some simple watercolours; they illustrated the book nicely, and broke up the text so it didn’t look too dry.

It did not take long to find a publisher; the name Severus Snape had been somewhat rehabilitated after taking on sole responsibility for _the boy who lived._ As much as the moniker made him cringe, as much as he was loathe to put himself in any way in the public eye, it was imperative that the book be published.

Severus was on tenterhooks after the first printing. They survived on a modest sum from Hogwarts, a variant of paternity wages, and some freelance potion crafting. It was enough for a quiet life in Spinner’s End, but Harry was growing up quickly. He had already outgrown Severus’ childhood bedroom, which was little more than a linen cupboard; it just wouldn’t be possible for him to stay there like Severus had, all through his teenage years. Severus still remembered it vividly; his feet hanging off the end of a too-short bed.

The little book performed remarkably well. Between the royalties and the sale of Spinner’s End, Severus was able to buy a quaint cottage on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It had a good, large garden and was surrounded by magical neighbours. Perhaps Harry could have a broom next year. Not a very fast one, mind.

* * *

Harry got his first broomstick for his sixth birthday, in the end. Severus couldn’t quite bring himself to buy one for his fifth after a local boy flew too far and burnt to death, caught in a Muggle pylon.

For his first flight Severus took them to the Hogwarts’ Quidditch Pitch. Harry spent most of his day there during term time while Severus was working, and was well known to all the staff. Severus knew that there wasn’t a pylon for miles; the worst thing that could happen was a crash, and he was prepared for all eventualities.

“Why do I have to wear all this?” Harry looked down at his knee-pads, elbow-pads and shin guards.

“It’s what everyone wears when they play Quidditch.” Harry wouldn’t be playing Quidditch for years yet, if Severus could help it. But that was beside the point.

Severus took it upon himself to teach Harry to fly. He had seen Madam Hooch directing the Hogwarts Quidditch teams and thought she let them fly much too fast. He opened a copy of the “Junior Broom Manual”, and began to recite the instructions. “Before you mount, perform each of the safety checks. Done. Before you embark, ensure that each of the Broom-spines are straight and well-aligned-“

A gust of wind blew Severus’ hair back from his face, and Harry took off like he was blown from a cannon.

“Harry James Potter! Get back here this instant!” He started to follow, but a hand at his elbow held him back.

“He’ll be a great seeker one day.” Madam Hooch observed, sounding as if she had been there the whole time; she probably had.

“When I’m dead and buried, I hope.”

* * *

Harry would always remember the day he got his Hogwarts letter. It was his first ever letter. Well, the first he got to read. He got a lot of “begging letters”, but they all went straight into the fireplace.

Severus gave it to him at breakfast. He was so excited he didn’t even open his presents first, or finish his toast.

“Does this mean I’m really going? I’m going to Hogwarts?”

Severus put down his spoon. All the cornflakes were gone, anyway. The bowl of leftover milk was given to the cat. “Where else would you be going?”

“Beaubaxtons?” It was one of Harry’s greatest fears; being sent to Beaubaxton. He thought he’d rather be in Azkaban. One of his friends told him they eat snails at Beaubaxton.

“Do you _want_ to go to Beaubaxton? You can, if you like.”

“No!” Harry’s parents went to Hogwarts. Severus taught there. It figured in all of Severus’ best stories.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to go to Hogwarts.”

“I don’t want to be French.”

“You wouldn’t be French if you went to school in France.”

“I won’t like the food.” Severus smiled; he never finished _his_ food and probably didn’t understand. No more was said about Beaubaxton, and it was a great relief.

* * *

Severus was in Madam Malkins’, and for the first time in years came face to face with Narcissa Malfoy. She was very much the perfect aristocrat, as beautiful as a blank statue; the only change in her was a further ossification of expression. Her son was with her; Draco. Severus was nominally the boy’s godfather though he hadn’t seen him since he was a baby. He was the image of his mother, not his father; perhaps he wouldn’t inherit his father’s casual cruelty, either.

“Severus.” Narcissa, ever ready to avoid an _indecorous_ display, held her hand out. He took it and pressed it gently. Draco watched with grim satisfaction, clearly pleased to see his mother treated with respect.

“Narcissa.”

She cast a quick glance around the room, once her son was in the fitting room, and safely out of earshot. “Severus. I know you and Lucius have had your- _differences.”_

Lucius could not set foot within twenty metres of Severus’ home without his robes catching fire, such was the animosity that characterised their final meeting. Severus could still recall the way he vomited into the gutter at Diagon Alley after feeling Lucius’ cold spit slide down his cheek. He’d needed to clean himself up in a room at the Leaky Cauldron before apparating home; Minerva had been watching Harry for an hour and he couldn’t take any questions, couldn’t stand vocalising Lucius’ depravity.

“That is rather putting it mildly.”

She ignored him, and pressed on. “I _know_ Draco will be a Slytherin. Severus, all I ask of you is this; judge him on his own merits. Don’t use him to hurt Lucius. Please.”

He didn’t anticipate liking the Malfoy scion, but what else could he do but agree to Narcissa’s request?

“I have never had a quarrel with _you_ , Narcissa. I’ll do as you ask. He will be treated _fairly,_ no better and no worse than any of my students.”

Narcissa watched as Harry emerged from the fitting room, in new school robes. “And this is the famous Harry Potter. My, my, aren’t you like your father.”

She looked at Severus with one of her vague, aloof smiles. Not many would have caught the insinuation, but her eyes held his for a second and he could skim the thought from her mind like cream from milk.

Lucius had been diligently spreading the rumour for some years now, that Severus was Harry’s natural father. He was supposed to have impregnated Lily when she wouldn’t say hello to him in the street, carrying on an affair with her under Potter’s nose. It was so ridiculous he could not comprehend that anyone believed it. Lucius, who had been aware of his calamitous relationship with Regulus Black, certainly did not. Did _Narcissa_ believe such a tale? If so, her husband kept more secrets from her than Severus ever imagined.

Severus could tell that Harry disliked her immediately, though he couldn’t say why.

* * *

Severus watched the mass of first years enter the Great Hall. Harry was instantly recognisable among them; he was the only one not gazing in wonder at the ceiling. He was no stranger to the great hall, he practically grew up here. He knew every single staff member, every corridor, every portrait.

Severus remembered Harry fiddling with the cuffs of his robes that morning, reluctant to put his coat on and set off for the castle.

Finally, he spoke; anxious and worried. “Severus, will I be in Slytherin like you?” His voice was full of trepidation. As much as Severus had tried to insist that all houses were equally good, that none was better than any other, it was only natural that Harry had picked up some ideas from his friends in the village. Slytherin’s reputation was still in the mire.

“I imagine you’ll be a Gryffindor like your mother and father.” Severus couldn’t conceive of the offspring of James and Lily Potter as anything _but_ a Gryffindor, and he certainly showed enough Gryffindor daring on his broom.

Harry was quiet on the walk to the castle. He still seemed nervous at the gates, so Severus stopped. “Whatever house you’ll be in, it will be where you belong. You’ll make lots of friends, I’m sure.”

“Let the sorting begin!” Minerva’s voice rang out across the hall, it was clear and forceful without a _sonorous_. Severus was brought back, jarringly, to awareness.

The Weasleys were Gryffindors, the Malfoys were Slytherins. Draco took his place at Severus’ table like his father and mother before him.

“Harry Potter.” The hall erupted in whispers the teachers couldn’t quell. Severus’ palms were sweating; he knew how decisive this moment was. It would dictate Harry’s experience of the next seven years, for good or for ill.

The hat was far too large for his head. The chair creaked. Time dragged on. The hat was deliberating, weighing. Severus’ palms began to itch.

All the while, Harry sat silent and stoic. He had been schooled to accept his fate, whatever it may be, and to make the very best of it.

“Slytherin!” The hat roared, the children cried out. Harry was a Slytherin.

Harry’s cheeks were pulled taut in a grin, as he slid off the chair in relief. Severus was stunned, but met Harry’s eyes with a reassuring nod as he made his way to sit with Severus’ house.

He could hardly believe it. Harry _Potter_ was in Slytherin; in a Slytherin green tie with a Slytherin crest on his robes.

* * *

Harry sat with the other Slytherins. The strange boy, _Draco,_ from Madam Malkins’ was talking to him already; he wouldn’t stop going _on_ about his father. “Father would so like to meet you. Everyone talks about you, you know. You’re _famous._ And rich, like us. Or at least, you will be.” Harry didn’t think they were _that_ rich. Severus’ textbooks brought in money enough, and he was a teacher on top of that. The cottage was nice, and the garden was large, but they didn’t live in a _mansion._ Draco seemed like he would live in a mansion; an old and drafty one with spiders that turned your hair into cobwebs.

Harry spent his first night in the Slytherin Dormitories feeling homesick; though he could have walked home in ten minutes. He was sharing a room with Draco, and he _snored_ ; he could hear the wind whistling through his pointy nose. Harry thought about throwing a pillow at his head, but thought better of it.

Harry saw Severus at breakfast the next morning, though it was from across the hall rather than their kitchen table.

When Severus left, Harry followed.

“Severus!” He whirled around to face him, but he wasn’t angry. Harry could always tell if Severus was cross.

“How was your first night in the dorms? Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

“That boy Draco snores.”

Severus laughed, but quietly; as if he didn’t want the other students to hear. He was supposed to be one of the strict teachers. “I’d better send him to the infirmary, then; can’t have him interrupting your sleep.”

Harry was excessively moody if he didn’t get enough sleep. He would start _getting in a strop,_ as Severus liked to say.

“Are we rich?” Harry hadn’t meant to ask it then, or to ask like that, but Severus didn’t seem surprised to hear his question.

“You have a substantial inheritance, that is currently held in trust.”

“We _are_ rich, then!”

“ _You_ are rich. The money is yours. It is being kept safe for you in a vault at Gringotts’. You will have full access to it when I can be sure you won’t gorge yourself on chocolate frogs until you’re sick.”

“That was only the once.” It was also what ended his habit of sneaking owl-orders to Honeydukes.

“Once was enough.”

* * *

Harry had to pester Severus for two weeks straight before he agreed to let Harry join the Quidditch team. He still wasn’t happy about it, but grudgingly gave Madam Hooch his permission.If Harry waited until Severus actually wanted him to play Quidditch, he’d be eighty years old.

Harry joined the team as a seeker, just like his father. He kept a photograph of his Dad playing Quidditch on his nightstand at home. His hand was outstretched to catch a snitch; he’d reach and reach but the photo always reset before he caught it.

Now, Harry would finally be a _part_ of the game, not just watching from the stands. As he took his starting position in the air, Harry could see Severus; he was sitting in their usual spot. Professor Quirrell was behind him, somehow looking even more nervous than Severus. But then, was Quirrell ever _not_ nervous?

Harry saw the snitch, he would have it, he _would_ catch it. Just like his father he reached and reached- He could have had it, but his _broom;_ nothing like it had ever happened before. He was jerked through the air and thrown, barely able to hang on. He dangled from one hand, the fingers of his gloves the only purchase he had on the smooth wooden handle. Just like his father, he would die young; he would die with Severus watching from the stands.

But the broom stilled, and Harry hoisted himself back up on the broomstick. There was calm for only a moment, as a sigh of relief spread across the pitch. All around, people were staring; they always stared. He didn’t notice at first that the game had stopped, but he heard a shrieking from the stands. People threw themselves out of the way in a tumble of hats and scarves as Severus lunged for Professor Quirrell. Harry saw a spray of blood before someone stepped in to pull them apart.

Harry never saw Quirrell again, for he was sent to Azkaban in chains that very evening.

* * *

“Severus, I simply don’t know what to say. Brawling like Muggles, _really_ …”

Severus sat with bruise paste on his knuckles, gazing levelly at the headmaster. “Would you rather I had used an unforgivable?” Severus could easily have been the one taken to Azkaban today, after that disaster of a match. His nerves were still shot, and his hands wouldn’t still around the teacup. He put it down to let the tea go cold.

Albus stroked his beard. “Under the circumstances there will be no disciplinary action, of course. Though I do wonder if Beaubaxtons would have been a better fit for young Harry.”

“Is he being _expelled?_ For being attacked?” Severus was his guardian and, now, his head of house. He would be the one to have the final say over Harry’s place at Hogwarts.

“ _No, No…_ I do wonder if it would be for the best, that is all. You thought so yourself, once.”

“Harry wanted to go to Hogwarts.” Albus smiled indulgently, and nearly interrupted, but Severus pressed on. “England is _crawling_ with the likes of Quirrell. If Harry had been at Beaubaxtons Quirrell would have sought employment there, and _god_ knows what would have happened-“

“Perhaps Harry is more resilient than you realise.”

“That wouldn’t justify- just- throwing him to the wolves.” Severus stood, overcome with disbelief. “We’re done here. I need to see if Harry’s alright. He’s had quite a shock today-“

“Severus, do you forget I have spoken with him myself? He is faring better than you, in fact.”

“He’ll be upset about the Quidditch, I’ll have to tell him-“

“Tell him what? That you won’t let him play Quidditch? Oh, Severus… It’s a _game.”_

 _“_ He could have…” Severus shrunk from saying the word _died,_ unwilling to associate the concepts of death and Harry even in thought.

“Lots of things are dangerous, my boy. He’ll face worse than a game of Quidditch.”

“You don’t need to remind me; I _know…”_

Albus’ face was a mask; as undecipherable as his mind. “Sometimes I do feel the need to remind you, Severus, that you are not _really_ the boy’s father.”

He fought the urge to pick at the wounds on his hands, to scrape the peeling skin away from the graze. The bruise paste was still working; an unpleasant sting.

“Albus, please; I know. I do. Just don’t _remind_ me of it-“

“Severus!” Albus called after him, but to no avail.

He left the office, clattering back to the dungeons. Albus was an uncommon sadist; the meeting no better than psychological torture. But he didn’t need to think about it, yet; he’d worry about it some other time.

* * *

Things changed, after that Quidditch match. Following the sorting, Harry was teased for being a Slytherin. _The next Great Dark Wizard,_ they called him. He was apparently going to replace the Dark Lord, to become the sort of wizard who killed his parents, orphaning him. If they still thought so, Harry had no way of knowing. The Gryffindors didn’t so much as glare at him in the corridors any more; they didn’t dare.

Since Quirrell failed to kill him, and was dragged from the stands with bloodied face and robes; Harry was untouchable. The teasing stopped; as did the shoving, the name-calling and the tripping. Harry never told Severus, of course. He would worry, and that would be worse than any of it. Though Harry never exploited Severus’ position as a teacher, the whole school now knew exactly what could happen if one of their jokes were ever to go too far. It was a mercilessly effective deterrent, and while it didn’t win him any more friends, it prevented him from making enemies.

Harry was used to having a very small circle of friends his own age; he spent most of his very early years around adults. It was still strange, actually, to call Auntie Minerva ‘Professor McGonagall’. She was a fixture of his childhood, being drafted in to babysit whenever Severus had to go somewhere without him; she never had children of her own, and was always eager to help.

Harry’s best friend at school was Draco Malfoy, though he hadn’t liked him at first. Draco grew on him after he admitted to being so terribly homesick he wanted to leave Hogwarts. Harry convinced him to wait before owling home, and they soon settled into a routine. He still talked about his _Father_ too much, and it was still annoying, but Harry learnt to tolerate it.

Tolerating Draco was easier now that he had stopped snoring at night; Severus dosed him with antihistamines whenever the pollen count was high.

* * *

Harry watched Gilderoy Lockhart, flat on his back, and wondered why he couldn’t block a simple _expelliarmus._ Severus looked down at him, stripped of his wand, and Harry wondered when they would ever have a real defence against the dark arts teacher. He was, as Severus said, a _charlatan._

Lockhart dusted his robes off, and suggested a student duel. Harry tried to catch his eye, he knew _so_ many defensive spells he never got to use.

“Ah! Harry Potter, our famous boy who lived. Let us test _your_ mettle.”

Harry saw Severus tense, and silently plead with him; _please, let me duel! I’ll be fine!_

“Very well. But, Professor, as you have selected the first candidate, I will select a partner for Mr. Potter. Malfoy!” Harry rolled his eyes, and jumped up to the podium. Severus knew Harry could win a duel against Draco.

“But they’re both Slytherins! It’s not fair!” A Gryffindor called out in protest, they were silenced by Severus deducting ten house points.

The duel was fun rather than challenging; Harry could anticipate every one of Draco’s spells, having sparred with him many times. But then Draco used a spell Harry didn’t know; he conjured a large and hissing serpent.

Severus was approaching, his wand ready, to intervene and banish the snake. Harry heard its hissed greeting, and thought it better manners if he were polite, too. He responded with an assurance that he meant no harm, but the room fell silent.

Severus was frozen, horrified. He banished the snake, but for a moment; Severus looked almost afraid of him.

* * *

Harry hardly used his father’s cloak. It was usually kept safe at the bottom of Harry’s trunk, but tonight he was following Severus to the headmaster’s office and could not be seen. Harry knew where he would go as soon as Severus got the letter at dinner; it was the same sort Draco received every morning from his mother; thick white parchment sealed with the Malfoy crest.

Harry was still rattled from the duel that morning. Though Severus had assured him there was nothing the matter with him and that it was simply a rare talent to talk to snakes, he was troubled.

Harry hung back, careful not to be noticed. He managed to squeeze through the door before it shut, but took his time climbing the stairs. Each one of Severus’ steps echoed down the spiral staircase, each one a sharp crack of boot heels against stone.

Harry heard voices at the top of the stairs; distant, but coming into sharper focus with each step.

“Severus, calm down. It’s nothing you’ve done.”

“If the sorting wasn’t shock enough, _now_ … Do you have any idea how difficult this is going to be?”

“It is nothing we are not prepared for.”

“Lucius Malfoy has written to me.” Harry was at the threshold of Dumbledore’s office; he saw Severus slam a letter onto the headmaster’s desk. “I haven’t spoken a word to him in nigh on a decade, but _now; yes,_ now he wishes to see me. At the Manor.” He spat the last word out in disgust.

“Use it. He’s opportunistic, an immediate thinker.”

“He thinks Harry is the dark lord’s successor. He thinks I’ve been forming him into a _dark wizard.”_

Harry’s stomach clenched in fear. Dumbledore looked serious and very old; his face seemed lined and weathered without the jovial expression he wore around Harry. The seriousness of what he was overhearing struck him.

Was he evil? Was he going to turn into a _monster,_ or a _murderer_?

“It is nothing you’ve done, Severus. You’ve done your best for that boy, surpassing even my expectations.” Severus sank into a chair, his head in his hands. Harry inched closer, trying to see his face, to read it. “You cannot create a parselmouth, the ability is not conferred; it is innate to the soul the gift was born in. You see my meaning, yes?”

So if Harry was evil, he was born that way and could not get better? Could not be good if he tried? His head was spinning, if the Slytherin house emblem was a snake and to talk to snakes meant you were evil, was Slytherin itself evil? Is that why everyone was so disappointed by his sorting? Harry had a vague idea that he was expected to be a Gryffindor, that it was important to people that he was, but it had never been important to Harry until now.

Terrible ideas ran through his head. Was Severus reluctant to let him duel his year-mates because he knew that Harry was dark, and would give himself away? That his magic itself was dark? He remembered a whispered insult he heard last year, it hadn’t made much of an impression at the time but it came back to him with stunning clarity; his eyes were killing curse green.

He had let everyone down.

* * *

Harry didn’t know how long he sat on the staircase; he only knew he had to be quiet while he cried or he would give himself away. He needed to wait until Severus left the office and opened the door; until then, he was trapped in the stairwell. It was getting cold, and it was a long time until he heard Severus come down the stairs. Severus stopped, listening.

“Harry?”

He didn’t know what gave him away; did he make a noise, or was it a warping of the candlelight around the cloak? Severus’ outstretched hand brushed against the gauzy fabric. The cloak was pulled away; he had been discovered.

“Oh, Harry… what are you doing here?” Severus knelt down next to him, on the cold and dusty steps. It must have been obvious that he was crying, because Harry was wrapped up in one of Severus’ tight hugs.

“Are you going to send me away?” He asked the question into one of Severus’ sleeves.

“Of course I won’t.”

“Am I a dark wizard?”

“Of course you’re not.”

“I’m sorry for spying.”

“Don’t apologise. I should have explained everything, I should have been clearer…”

Severus did explain, then. He told Harry about what he had in common with his parent’s murderer, about what the word _parselmouth_ meant to most wizards. Harry was caught in the centre of bitter rivalries and partisan politics; he was in the midst of a civil war.

* * *

The gates of Malfoy Manor soared high before him; cold silver-steel with humming wards. It was christmas, and Severus stood beside him, holding a bottle of wine in his arm. Harry’s hands were pressed together around one of Severus’ warming charms, though he still felt the cold of the whipping winter wind. The snow clothed the shingles in Malfoy white; Harry was right when he assumed that Draco lived in a Mansion. Draco liked to boast, but Harry had learnt to take his grandest claims with a pinch of salt. This time, the grandeur had not been overstated; the manor was a magnificent house of clean white marble, each architectural feature chosen for its beauty alone.

There was a long approach, a tree-lined drive stamped with the impression of thestral-hooves and carriage-wheels. The lines and horseshoes stood out in clear relief against the snow.

Severus tapped his wand thrice against the door. It opened unto a marbled atrium; chess-board tiled and _vast._ Everything was pristine, pale, and cold as stone.

In the middle of the room stood the Malfoy family, in a stiff and awkward posture of formal welcome. Their dress robes mirrored the traditional, formal robes Severus ordered for this occasion. Severus was in his usual black, while Harry was in green. The Malfoys were all in black, but with an emerald green rosette pinned to each of their lapels. Draco was nearly vibrating with pride before his father. For all the good things Harry heard of him from Draco, Lucius Malfoy struck Harry as a fearsome snob.

“Severus; we meet again. At last.” There was something pinched and uncomfortable in Lucius Mafoy’s gaze. Harry couldn’t imagine why Draco was so proud of him.

“Lucius. Narcissa.” Severus greeted each of their hosts in turn, even Draco received a polite handshake.

“I am honoured to finally make your acquaintance, my lord.” Lucius bowed and, though Severus forewarned him of this sort of attendance, it was immensely uncomfortable.

“His lordship will be taken through to the dining room.” Lucius and Narcissa guided Harry into a splendid hall, dominated by a long and grand table. Harry was shown to a seat at its head, with Severus and Lucius on either side.

The feast was sumptuous and more decadent by far than anything produced at Hogwarts. There were silver vats of sauces, platters of rare game and a dozen knives and forks; Harry longed for the simple, homely Christmas lunch he was used to. There was little conversation, only soft harp-music broke the silence. This was about the time Minerva usually popped round for a Christmas sherry with Severus.

“So, Master Harry, I have it on good authority that your studies are progressing most promisingly.” Lucius put his fork down to stare.

“Yes, they are. Severus teaches me lots of hexes. So many. Really nasty ones.” Severus’ boot tapped his shoe. He was laying it on a bit thick. Harry tried to look stern.

“The children have finished eating, Lucius. Let them open their gifts; I believe we have business to attend to.”

Harry was sent into the drawing room with Narcissa and Draco. He sat at the foot of a towering, tinselled tree and peeled the paper from a set of wizard chess. He listened all the while, waiting for the slightest breath of a sound from the library.

A scream pierced the air as a chill descended that even the roaring fire could not warm. It was the dying scream of an imprint of Tom Riddle, a shade imprisoned in a nondescript black diary. Though it was only a _shade,_ it screamed as it was killed; Severus plunged the sword of Gryffindor through the very centre of it.

Harry caught a glimpse of the battered diary before it was buried in an unmarked hole in the forbidden forest; the gash through its pages was crusted with blood and ink.

* * *

Harry unwrapped a broomstick for his thirteenth birthday. It was the very best available; faster and nimbler than any before. Viktor Krum himself endorsed the very first of them. Harry’s initials were etched onto the handle in solid silver lettering. That was the end of Harry and Severus’ feuding over Quidditch, the end of Severus inadvertently handicapping his success by keeping him on slower, ‘safer’ brooms.

Harry tried not to think about how many copies of his books Severus needed to sell to raise the money, or how many hours spent teaching Potions to dunderheads his broom represented. It was generous in the extreme, and Harry knew with absolute certainty that Severus would rather start selling his organs for potions ingredients than touch the Potter vault. Harry himself didn’t know exactly how much money he would one day command, but his father hadn’t needed to think of work.

Draco’s father bought him the same model that year; the brooms differed only in the initialling. It was one of his many presents, which included; silver robes, acromantula silk pillowcases and a dragon-skin satchel. Draco’s broom lay on the floor of their shared dormitory room, where it collected a fine layer of dust. His friend was uninterested in Quidditch, and never went near the pitch save for their mandatory lessons with Madam Hooch. He was more of a studious type, spending hours altogether in the library while Harry was outside on his broomstick, no matter the weather.

* * *

Harry wasn’t sure about the new defence against the dark arts teacher.

One summer morning, after a meeting with the headmaster, Severus arrived through the cottage floo. He was visibly tense and pale; lost in memory.

“Severus?”

“Hmm?” He was starting to pace, tearing up more carpet threads from his usual pacing furrow.

Harry brewed some tea. This was a tea sort of event.

“What did the headmaster have to say?”

Severus strayed over to the kitchen table, sitting down but drumming his fingertips on the wood. “You’re to have a new defence against the dark arts professor.”

Harry smiled into his teacup. “I didn’t think they’d keep Lockhart.”

“The replacement is-“ Severus took a minute to select his words. “He is _entirely unsuitable.”_

“Why?” Entirely unsuitable was cryptic, even for Severus, but it hinted at something that went beyond the professional disdain Severus held for Lockhart’s capabilities. “Do you know him, then?”

“No, not really. Knew once, perhaps…”

The man in question was thin and unimposing, but had a worrying desperation in his eyes that suited his teaching _defence._ Draco kept up a running commentary on his shabbiness, saying that he looked like a vagrant in more ways than Harry thought possible.

One of their very first lessons involved an old wardrobe and a boggart. Harry and Draco were the only ones who didn’t participate; they stood at the back of the room and watched each student expose their very worst fears, their darkest nightmares. The thought of what his own boggart could be raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

Neville Longbottom stood in front of the class and, with a nervous glance in Harry’s direction, told them all his worst fear was _Professor Snape._ Harry chewed on the inside of his cheek to smother a laugh. All he could think of was how Severus snuck off to Tesco once a month to buy Muggle cornflakes.

When Professor Lupin told Neville to “picture Professor Snape in your Grandmother’s clothes”, Harry and Draco were the only ones who didn’t laugh.

* * *

Harry was walking through Hogsmeade with Draco trailing along at his side, bemoaning the cold weather despite his fur hat and gloves. Draco’s neuralgia was bothering him again, and not even his charmed winter thermals were protection enough. Harry wanted chocolate frogs from Honeydukes, and Draco set off in search of Mint Imperials. Harry wasn’t sure Draco liked the sweet as much as he liked saying ‘Mint Imperial’.

Severus was waiting outside. Though he tried to give them as wide a berth as possible during the Hogsmeade weekends, the illusion of independence didn’t stretch to Severus staying in the castle; he volunteered himself as the Hogsmeade chaperone. Harry was in between towering stands of limited edition chocolate animals when he overheard the whispering of adult voices. He kept his nose in the display, but made sure he caught every word.

“But you don’t believe the rumours, do you?” Harry recognised the cashier’s voice, distinctive and vying for information.

A woman’s voice replied, and if Harry tilted his head just a little he could see Mrs. Longbottom’s alligator mules. “I confess I was, for a time, taken in. There is a certain _similarity_ one cannot quite place.”

“But he’s got to looking like James so much these past years, now that his hair’s been cut. Don’t you think?”

“I see it, now. I do. Lucky boy, I say; though the odious personality may have taken root, and _that’s_ all down to nurture, he has escaped that positively _dreadful_ face.” She sighed, long and mournful. “Dear old James in Slytherin green is an apparition I _never_ wished to encounter. I count my blessings every day that my Neville’s grown to be such an angel. A _cherubin_ if ever there was one.”

When Harry paid for his chocolate frogs, the cashier couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

* * *

Severus was like a cat on a hot tin roof, that year. He was stricter than ever about Harry’s curfew, nearly ranting about _dark creatures in the woods_ and _murderers on the loose._ He continually had dark-rimmed under-eyes and switched from tea to coffee in the mornings. Soon enough, the coffee appeared at lunch-time, and then at dinner too.

Severus, from the first day of term, began to schedule monthly evenings at home in the cottage. They would eat dinner, watch films and brew, then return to Hogwarts in the morning. Draco, to Harry’s surprise, came too. Harry never thought Severus liked Draco overmuch, but he was polite to anyone who was kind to Harry. For all that he could be a bloody nuisance sometimes, Draco was a good friend to him.

“Draco, I need your help with something.” Harry dragged him into one of the dustiest corners of the library. It was the section for advanced arithmancy, and they were sure to be undisturbed. Harry cast _muffliato,_ just to be safe.

“What is it?” Draco was reluctant, suspicious even, as if he thought Harry were going to ask him to jump off the Astronomy Tower.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Your Dad’s on the board of governors, isn’t he?”

“Yes, _why?”_

 _“_ Are there any werewolves at Hogwarts?”

Draco looked away, and back again. The only thing that thrilled Draco more than keeping his own secrets was telling other people’s.

“ _Why_ do you ask?” That was the ploy with Draco; if you gave nothing, you got nothing.

“He doesn’t know I know, but Severus has been brewing Wolfsbane. And all the times we’ve been back to the cottage, its been a full moon.”

“There is _someone._ I’m not supposed to tell, but…” Draco paused for dramatic effect. If he hadn’t been a wizard he would have made a great living on the stage. “It’s Professor Lupin.”

* * *

Harry wasn’t going to _do_ anything about it; in fact, he felt sorry for the Professor. If Severus was making him Wolfsbane everything must be under control. Harry saw that Lupin would look particularly haggard in the days following a full moon, but otherwise he paid him little mind.

But Lupin, it soon proved, did not leave Harry alone. He seemed to want desperately to speak to him, catching his eye at the end of a lesson, but Harry preferred to keep his distance. He was used to strange behaviour, and shied away at the prospect of another sycophantic fan of _the boy who lived._ Worse than that, was the thought that this werewolf may once have supported Riddle, and could be one of the dark arts practitioners who yearned for a new figurehead.

He kept his distance until he was explicitly asked to stay after class.

“Harry…’ Professor Lupin spoke as if he were an old friend.

“Am I in trouble, Professor?”

“No. But I can’t deny that I am _concerned._ I wondered if I may ask you some questions about defence against the dark arts, what you feel the importance of the subject to be?”

Harry nodded, wary. Lupin had a piece of yellowed parchment shoved into a patched pocket, that his hand strayed to oftener than it did toward his wand.

“Do you feel that, um, the dark arts themselves should be taught? Do you think that there is a place for the dark arts in the life of a wizard? Would that be permissible, do you think?”

“I think I ought to go.” Harry went to leave, but Lupin had never looked so desperate before. All his desperation came out in a helpless cry.

“Harry, we just want to help you! Please don’t think I’m saying this to be cruel. You have friends, Harry; friends of your parents who still care and _won’t_ live to see you…”

“Lots of people knew my parents. They were good people.”

“ _Yes,_ Harry, that’s exactly right! They were so good and so _kind_ that they put their trust in the wrong people! And you, their son, you’ll fall victim to the same fate. You trust the wrong people.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. If Dumbledore doesn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth you don’t deserve to hear it.”

“Don’t think I’m one of the ignorants. I know you hold court with dark wizards, with pureblood fanatics. I know that you _think_ it is for the greater good. Yes! I know all about it.But do _you_ know the truth, Harry? Does _Dumbledore?_ ”

“People can think what they like about me, I can’t stop them. You included. Think what you like.”

He wanted to go.

“Don’t you ever wonder what your _training_ is for, Harry? Don’t you ever wonder why you live with a Dark Wizard, who teaches you dark curses?”

“Severus is not a dark wizard!” The windows rattled in a bout of uncontrolled magic unlike any Harry had ever performed. “He isn’t teaching me the dark arts! You know _nothing-_ nothing!”

“Why did he take the mark? Why did he follow Voldemort, the man who _killed_ your parents?” Lupin really did resemble a savaging dog as he belaboured his points. What training was he going on about? The only person who ever mentioned training was Malfoy; did he take Lucius Malfoy’s delusions as fact over Dumbledore’s word?

“I know he took the mark! You think I know nothing? Do you? I know you’re a werewolf. That makes _you_ darker than Severus, by a lot.”

“You’re a canny young fellow, Harry. You certainly didn’t get that from James.”

“I never knew my father.” Lupin’s face crumpled in agony and grief.

“You look so much like him. More and more each day. He’d never have wanted this for you, Harry. He’d never have wanted to leave you with _that-!”_

“I’m not listening to this anymore.” Harry went to leave, but stood between Harry and the doorway was Sirius Black.

Harry readied himself for a fight, heart beating fast in his chest. The man looked like a lunatic, with his matted snarl of hair and dirty face. He looked like he belonged in Azkaban.

Harry raised his wand. “You killed my parents.”

“It wasn’t _me._ I would sooner have _eviscerated_ myself than betray James and Lily! I never betrayed your parents, never-”

“Then who _did.”_

 _“_ It was the rat- that Peter Pettigrew!” Black’s body language spoke of extravagant agony and a decayed mind.

“You’re a liar! You killed him and he’s not here to tell anyone otherwise-“

“We did kill him, Harry! He hung on all these years but we drowned his fucking rat corpse in the lake, just like the filthy _thieving, lying_ rodent he always was-“ 

The door burst open in a hail of sparks and splintered wood. Suddenly, there was Severus and it took all Harry had to stand his ground and keep ahold of his wand. He stayed firmly in his duelling stance, ready and waiting to defend himself.

Severus’ wand was at Black’s throat, and he looked ready to kill him. Could Severus go to Azkaban if he killed an escapee? Harry’s knuckles went white around his wand.

“Snivellus, you think that while I live and breath I’ll leave James Potter’s only son to you, for you to twist into a little Slytherin, little death eater-“

Harry thought he would see his first dead body since that night in Godric’s Hollow, all those years ago; but Severus ignored the taunting. Quick as lightning, he disarmed Professor Lupin.

Lupin had not been expecting it. He had his full attention trained on the protection of Black and never thought Severus would not match his every insult. Now, finding himself wandless and vulnerable, he begged for the life of Sirius Black.

Harry would never know whether Severus, of his own volition, would have considered Sirius Black’s life worth saving. Dumbledore swept into the room, past the carnage of the ruined door and assumed authority. Severus, for the rest of the year, taught defence as well as potions.

* * *

Severus checked and re-checked Harry for injuries a dozen times. He wanted him to spend the night in the infirmary, but when Harry said that the only place he wanted to go was _home,_ Severus couldn’t deny him. It was only when Harry was safely asleep in his room that Severus allowed himself to fall apart.

He sat with his head in his hands and shook like a condemned man, still quivering with adrenaline. It could so easily have ended in a bloody duel, a vicious war of hexes with Harry caught in the middle like a toy being ripped apart by quarrelling children. It was a scene directly from his own nightmares, but to see it manifested in Harry’s reality was more than he could bear. He well remembered having to fight viciously and ruthlessly against the marauders; it was their style to outnumber and entrap their targets.

It could all have ended so terribly.

It was over breakfast the next morning, though Severus himself ate nothing, that he found the courage to broach the subject. He simply had to know.

“Harry; what did Black and Lupin say to you last night?”

Harry stabbed his fork into the yolk of an egg so that it streamed over his toast. “A pack of lies. Telling me I’ve been practicing dark magic, that you’re a dark wizard, that I’m turning into the next dark lord. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“Is there- _anything_ you want to ask me?”

Harry looked up at him with serious, grave eyes and Severus hoped desperately that Lupin hadn’t known _why_ Harry was with him. He hoped he would not have to acknowledge what he could barely face in his own thoughts.

“They said things about my Dad, they made it sound like he didn’t like you.”

“We were not the best of friends.”

Harry sank down into his chair. “I sort of knew that, you don’t talk about him like you talk about Mum. But they made it sound like you- _hated_ each other.”

He sat there for a minute, thinking of something to say that would ease away the taut lines of confusion on Harry’s brow. But the world couldn’t be simple forever, and calamity had crept in unbidden, no matter how Severus strove to keep it away.

“Just tell me. I can handle it. Promise.”

“We… We did not get on, personally. We never did, from the very first. Though I was not one of them, he was loyal to his friends and to your mother.”

“Why weren’t you friends, if you were friends with Mum?”

“Why don’t you have friends in Gryffindor?” Harry was quiet for the rest of breakfast, and Severus wished he had pleasanter things to say about the past.

Harry wasn’t satisfied. Severus had always been diplomatic about his father. He had listed his accomplishments honestly, if plainly. Harry was told his father was admired, popular, came from a loving family, loved his mother, loved Quidditch. But, there was none of the warmth and life that was there when Severus talked of his mother. The stories Severus could tell of his mother were warm and humane, but all those of his father were impersonal acknowledgements of success.

And Harry was so very much like his father.

* * *

For his fourteenth birthday, Severus bought Harry a full set of dragon hide Quidditch leathers, and a set of formal dress robes.

“Are we going to a party?”

Severus was methodically banishing balls of wrapping paper. “Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard tournament this year.”

Harry slipped the robes on over his shirt and trousers. They fit perfectly, for Madam Malkin took his measurements well in advance of the upcoming school year. He had grown a lot this summer and seemed to be always hungry; he thought he could devour at least half of his birthday cake in one sitting.

“Do I need new clothes for that? I won’t be competing.”

Severus met Harry’s eyes, aghast. “You certainly will not be.” Once Severus had assured himself that Harry did not, in actuality, suffer from a death-wish; he explained that there would be a ball and that Harry was expected to attend.

“Will I have to dance?” Harry wasn’t yet used to the length of his limbs, and had bruises up and down his shins from knocking them into low tables and chair legs.

“You could always hover by the punch bowl like a rogue Potioneer but I expect you’d be tossed out.”

Harry opened his gift from the Malfoys last. It was an emerald ring set in silver, with the date of his birth inscribed on the inside of the band. Harry owled a perfectly polite thank you note, and shut it up in a drawer.

* * *

It was the day after his birthday, which could mean only one thing; it was time to endure their bi-annual trip to the Dursleys. Severus was the only one who cared if Harry went or not; his Aunt was never happy to see him and Harry certainly wasn’t pleased to see her. Still, they visited the Dursleys every first of August and every December twenty-seven.

Twice a year Harry and Severus dressed in their only set of Muggle clothes, purchased specifically for excursions into Surrey. Twice a year Harry endured stale custard creams and tepid tea, all machinations that Petunia needn’t have bothered with as Severus only required that Harry endure the odious presence of his relatives for half an hour at a time. Half an hour was the minimum time required to soothe Severus’ conscience at Harry’s estrangement from his relatives, and was coincidentally the maximum length of time Harry could bear said relatives. Any longer than that, and the uncomfortable, obligatory questions turned into bitter jibes and aspersions on Severus’ character.

Petunia was profoundly suspicious of, and Vernon largely ignorant of, the Wizarding world; topics of conversation were thin on the ground. They managed to kill a whole ten minutes last year by speaking very slowly and only asking questions about gardening.

This year, plastic sofa covers entombed the furniture of Petunia’s best room; they were easily wiped down with bleach once her guests cleared the driveway.

* * *

Harry took Draco to the Yule Ball, as any good friend would; a public outing with the partially disgraced _boy who lived_ would keep Lucius Malfoy quiescent for at least two weeks.

Draco complained that Harry stepped on his toes, and Harry still couldn’t dance. They spent the rest of the evening hovering next to the punch bowl. Harry spun the emerald ring round his finger and registered, for the first time, an emerald tie pin in Draco’s cravat, an emerald necklace around Pansy Parkinson’s neck and an emerald brooch at Millicent Bulstrode’s throat.

That Christmas was one of Harry’s best. It was uninterrupted, quiet, and replete with traditions. Minerva came for her Christmas sherry, the tree was hung with vials full of iridescently sparkling liquid and they watched White Christmas on an overhead projector. Not even the hard and brittle mince pies at the Dursley’s spoilt his festivities.

Harry received a silver-wrapped present from the Malfoys, adorned with a green silk bow. Inside was a green silk tie and an emerald-studded pair of cufflinks. Tucked at the bottom of the box was a note from Draco, thanking Harry for his own christmas present; an antique spell-crafting tome Severus allowed Harry to liberate from his library. It was the sort of book that would keep Draco busy for _days._

* * *

Harry was fifteen. Severus made his birthday cake, as always and Harry blew out fifteen candles. “I’ve struggled this year, thinking of what to get you.” Severus cut himself a small sliver, but passed a hulking slab of cake toward Harry. “You’re getting very difficult to shop for.”

“Oh, what do you get the boy who has everything?”

“Precisely. I hope this will do.”

Severus slid a white presentation box over the table. Cake momentarily forgotten, Harry opened the lid. It was a simple silver watch; Muggle in design, though it looked antique.

“Thankyou Severus- It’s _brilliant.”_ Harry could tell it was expensive, it looked like the sort of Muggle artefact Malfoys would condescend to own.

“It’s charmed.” Harry picked it up, feeling the hum of sophisticated charm-work. “Your O.W.Ls are coming up this year, and you’ll need good timekeeping.”

“Which I’ve never had.”

Severus laughed, pleased that Harry was pleased. “It will tell you what you should be doing. If you should be revising, it will tell you. If you need a break, it will remind you. I want you to do well, but you mustn’t run yourself into the ground.”

* * *

Petunia shifted in her chair, the plastic squeaking against her rayon dress. “That’s a bit of a _funny_ present for a fifteen year old; isn’t it, Vernon?”

“It _is_ a bit.” Vernon leant forwards, trying to read a brand-name on the watch face.

“I’ve bitten my tongue all these years-“ Harry scoffed; Petunia had not been subtle. “ _All these years_ I have not said what I think.

“And you’re entitled to an opinion, dear, aren’t you?”

“That I _am.”_

Severus was silent and tense beside him; he’d always tried so hard with Petunia, though it was clear he never liked her. He put up with so much on Harry’s account that he needn’t have done. He had already endured fifteen years of these loathsome meetings, and Harry couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

“ _Harry.”_ Severus always hated it when Harry antagonised the Dursleys. ‘It’s only half an hour’, he’d say. ‘You’ll regret it one day, if you cut ties.’ The issue was, Harry didn’t think he would.

Petunia was crowing, her opportunity was here at last.

“I am only wondering why you were sent to live with _him,_ when you could have had a perfectly normal, sane upbringing here?”

“Mum obviously knew what you were like; spiteful and nasty, begrudging me a sodding biscuit every time I come here. Why on earth would she want me to live with _you?_

 _“_ I think we ought to leave, Harry. Come, now; stop it.” Severus was trying to lead him from the room. Vernon’s fist twitched in his lap as if he wanted to lash out with it; to strike Harry across the face.

“And I know what _he’s_ like. He was rotten from the very first, rotten as a child and rotten now. And you’ve fared no better. You’re a lost cause!”

Harry was still looking over his shoulder to shout at Petunia while Severus steered him from the house.

They were over the threshold of the cottage before Severus spoke again. “Harry, _why_ did you do do that?”

“I should have said it years ago. She’s never liked me and she made sure I knew it. It would have been hell on earth living with that lot.”

“She was your mother’s sister; your only way to connect-“

Harry realised he was still shouting, still incensed by Petunia’s superiority. He tried to lower his voice, to calm himself down. “She’s never been interested. The only time she’s ever spoken about Mum was to be rude. She’s rude to me and she’s horrible to you. I don’t care what you say; I’m _never_ going there again.”

“Harry, be reasonable-“

“ _Reasonable.”_

“-They’re your only family…”

Once Harry said he would never see the Dursleys again, he meant it. He wouldn’t be missed. “Severus; _you’re_ my family.”

Severus shut his eyes; defeated.

* * *

Severus watched Harry and Draco at the workbench, busy brewing the _Draught of the Living Death._ It was a tricky potion to get exactly right, and they were the only students in the class who weren’t flushed and flustered. Whenever partnered work was required, Harry and Draco invariably worked together. Draco was the only student in Harry’s year who came close to matching his competency in potions.

It would have been unthinkable for anyone raised in Severus’ household to come away with anything less than competency, but that was insufficient praise. When Harry was in front of a cauldron, he reminded Severus so much of himself and his own precocious talent for brewing.

Not that their approach was identical; far from it. Where Severus was methodical in the extreme, Harry’s abilities were independent of the scientific method; he was a fearless maverick who unflinchingly combined volatile elements in untested combinations. Severus’ interest was fiercely intellectualised, whereas Harry had a genius for practical applicability. He was truly the heir of Fleamont Potter, of his money and his pioneering combining of entrepreneurism and potions mastery. When Severus first made the comparison, Harry was alight with joy.

It was no surprise when Harry received his outstanding in potions. To celebrate, Severus agreed to a dinner at the leaky cauldron.

* * *

Harry had his secrets. Everyone had them; Dumbledore kept his secrets as close and well-guarded as any Slytherin would, Severus did not speak of his at all.

It was nothing out of the ordinary, for Harry to be called to Dumbledore’s office. What _was_ out of the ordinary was arriving and not finding the headmaster. Harry waited for half an hour, his patience tested with every inch the sun set. He was aching to be outside on his broom; it was the perfect climate for flying. Harry was not a saint, he had things he would rather be doing than waiting for Dumbledore to remember an appointment.

But surely Dumbledore hadn’t _forgotten._ As his patience was tested, he fell into temptation. The pensieve was open, shrouded with mist and unattended. Harry strayed closer, gazing into the swirling and smoking depths. Harry had watched Severus brewing this liquid before; it was beautiful, blue, enticing.

Harry dove in, so ready for knowledge and for understanding. Dumbledore was an enigmatic figure, his mind impenetrable. It was only fitting, then, that the pensieve contained not Dumbledore’s memories, but Severus’. There was a flurry of memories, of shouting and hexes andbooks spilling to the ground from the force of a shove. Severus was Harry’s age in these memories, and his experiences had their echo in Harry’s own treatment following his sorting.

In many of the memories, he sat and read alone. Harry, if he thought about it, always understood that Severus had not been a popular student; too many of his stories began with him on the edge of the action, observing the crowd. Harry’s suspicions were now a certainty. The memories in the pensieve all followed the theme of Severus’ social isolation and an ongoing feud with a group of Gryffindors. The Gryffindors; Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Harry’s very own father.

Harry didn’t just look like his father; save for the eyes, they were almost identical. Identical down to the glasses; but Harry was sure he had never looked at Severus with the plain loathing on his father’s face. It was painful, seeing that they weren’t simply _not friends,_ but were enemies. Severus’ black eyes burned with bitterness every time he met James Potter, the venom in his insults was astonishing. This was a Severus Harry had never known; he was defined by anger and resentment.

Severus, already isolated, was pursued relentlessly by the Gryffindors with the use of a tracking map. He was by no means passive in their clashes, but lost oftener than he won. Harry could see that his father was everything that Severus said he was; he was popular, admired, wealthy and successful. His father used all of these gifts as a rod with which to beat him. Harry felt shame, then, for his own father whose memory had been so dear to him. It was all spoilt now, all ruined.

The very last memory made him feel sick.

“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?” His father’s words rang in his ears as he fled Dumbledore’s office.

* * *

“Is there something wrong, Harry?” Severus was preparing dinner, stirring ground herbs into a soffritto. He paused to look at Harry in concern.

He had been quiet all evening, though he tried his best to affect normality. He wouldn’t say anything to Severus about the Pensieve; the memories were in there because Severus didn’t want to think of them. Why would he force Severus to revisit a surely painful subject, when Harry had seen everything?

“Just a bit tired, is all.”

“I’ve been thinking, about your birthday.” It was coming up soon. Harry had his way over Christmas and they hadn’t seen the Dursleys. If they neglected the customary birthday visit it would be a year since their last meeting. Harry readied a set of excuses, in case Severus wanted him to make amends.

“Yeah?”

“Is there anything in particular you want this year?” Harry knew he was difficult to shop for; he had his broomstick and full access to Severus’ laboratory. When he tried to think of a material object he wanted, he came up blank. The Malfoy’s expensive presents were gratefully accepted, but Harry had no real love of luxury.

He was going to say no, happy to get what he was given, but he remembered that a gift needn’t be an object. “Actually, there _is_ something… if you don’t mind.”

“What is it? Why would I mind?” Severus looked oddly offended that Harry thought he wouldn’t receive exactly what he asked for.

“Could you brew the eyesight potion for me? Please? The one you brewed for Malfoy…” Harry recalled how he nearly howled with laughter the first time he saw Lucius Malfoy in reading glasses. It wasn’t the fact that he wore them, but his vain shame at being seen with them that made the sight so comical.

“I reckon you could brew it yourself.”

“I’d feel better if you brewed it. I don’t fancy being the world’s first blind seeker.”

It took three weeks to brew, four cauldrons of simmering liquids, and twenty varieties of eyes. Harry’s eyesight was tested and re-tested, droplets of potion were dripped into his pupils so the final concoction would be perfectly tailored to his prescription. It was a difficult potion to brew, the slightest miscalculation could cause permanent magically-induced blindness. Harry assisted in the chopping and mincing, enjoying the rote mechanism of it. He helped Severus last time too, when he brewed for Malfoy. It was the sort of delicate brewing that required an assistant; Harry often had to sieve dry ingredients into the cauldron as Severus stirred, so focused he didn’t dare wipe the sweat from his brow.

Harry remembered the requirement for a sample of tears to stir into the potion’s final stage. Before Severus could ask, Harry shut himself in the bathroom with a vial and waited. It didn’t take long for him to cry, as if the tears were ever-ready in his skull. He tipped his head forward so as not to spill a drop, letting each pearl of liquid fall directly into the glass. He stoppered the vial, protecting the small puddle at its base from evaporation. Facing his reflection, he saw that his eyes and nose were pink like a squalling child’s.

In the very early morning, Harry stole into the laboratory to leave a vial labelled ‘ _lacrimae’_ among Severus’ carefully arranged ingredients. It was not acknowledged explicitly, only with a solemn quiet as Severus spilt them into the final mixture, into a cauldron no larger than a teacup. They hissed upon impact, transforming the potion into the cloudless water of clear sight. It was finally finished; three weeks of work for a mere sip of liquid.

There was nothing, at first: no flash of lightning or searing pain as his biology was rearranged. Harry’s eyesight actually deteriorated throughout the day, though Severus was unperturbed. He could no longer discern leaves from branches, then could not pick out individual branches from trees. The evening found Harry laying on the settee, an abandoned book beside him, for the letters swam together in a blur. He squinted at Severus, seeing only a black and white smear.

“Are you sure this is normal?”

“Perfectly. What can you see?”

“Pretty much nothing. It’s awful.”

“Now take your glasses off.” Harry complied, and the room snapped into crisp focus. He could see perfectly; unaided, his vision was now better than it ever had been with the help of his glasses. His eyesight was clinically perfect. He could see Severus now, laughing in his chair, could see the twill weave of his bleached cuffs. He jumped up and ran to the hall mirror, seeing himself for the first time in clear relief, his face unadorned and his eyes unobstructed. Green, with no interfering glass; they were his mother’s eyes.

* * *

Harry made it into Severus’ NEWT level potions class, of course. Severus only accepted those with outstanding grades, leaving Harry and Draco part of a much diminished set. Consequently, the lessons focused solely on the finer points of brewing; Severus trusted his NEWT students to avoid blowing up their cauldrons, so allowed them a little freedom. Practical experimentation dominated the classroom time, lecturing was replaced by independent study.

The other students in the NEWT potions class were overwhelmingly Slytherins and Ravenclaws, the only ones who neither feared nor despised Severus. The sole Hufflepuff and the pair of Gryffindors kept to the back of the room, but were intent enough on their NEWT grades that they did not affect the calm class atmosphere. Harry felt like he could finally breathe in the laboratory; he was used to stiffly enduring sullen mutterings about Severus that were pitched low and quiet, but just within earshot. Severus wouldn’t thank him for starting a row in his classroom, and he couldn’t very well take points himself, but the hold he kept on his temper was fragile. He vastly preferred their laboratory at home, where it was just the two of them, free to talk or to be quiet but always working in harmony.

Severus always found something to critique in Harry’s potions. He made sure to test each one properly, and invariably found something that could be improved upon. Complacency and laziness were given no nourishment in Severus’ household; Harry was pushed, and would continue to be pushed until Severus could teach him no more. This policy was one of the many things about Severus that outsiders couldn’t understand; it was intolerable to listen to _assumptions,_ based on ignorance, by those who were too ungrateful to recognise _advice._ No matter that at least half of this class would not have made it to NEWT level without the help of Severus’ textbooks; they would have struggled to attain even a passing grade if Severus had still been lecturing from the text used during Severus’ own schooling.

Harry sighed in frustration, and applied more forceful pressure in grinding up the bones in his mortar. His pro-Severus crusade was unpopular and unconvincing; Harry was seen as being biased in his favour even amongst his fellow Slytherins. Though they were not afraid of him, Severus kept himself too aloof to ever be _liked_ by them.

“What’s wrong with you today? You’re going to grind your pestle away.” Draco was intent on his own work, chopping mint.

“Does it ever frustrate you that nobody really likes Severus?”

“Not this again.” Draco didn’t look up from his mint.

“No, really. I just don’t understand why people have to go out of their way to be such- _such-“_

 _“_ He brings it upon himself. I don’t think he’s interested in being liked.”

“But what about when he just minds his own business? What sort of a person-“

Draco did pause then, and this time it was Harry who dipped his eyes. “Are we talking about anyone in particular?”

“No. No- just thinking.”

Harry realised that he had been thinking of it again; it was never far from his mind now. Harry felt the loss of that golden image of his father like an immediate bereavement, a soul-realisation that he had _never_ known his parents.

* * *

Harry knew that there was a reason Riddle had never returned; he even knew it had something to do with the _creature_ in the diary. Dumbledore never discussed it, only offered Harry sweets and biscuits; it was a clear dismissal. Severus would not talk about it, either. But Harry _knew_ that there was something going on, something that involved him and something he was being kept away from.

Riddle was not dead, nor was he alive. Harry had not killed him, but he had banished him from life. It was the sort of intricate paradox Draco thrived in dissecting, but Dumbledore and Severus forbade him from speaking of Riddle to Draco. He had no help, no counsel; he was left to his own imaginings.

Severus and Dumbledore began to disappear together for days at a time. Harry was left alone in the castle and, though Harry was always notified, he was never told where they were going. Every time he asked what the trips were for, Severus only said “ _business”._

He was being left in ignorance, though their secrets concerned him. Was he not trustworthy? Had he not proven himself capable of keeping secrets? He could feel Severus pulling away from him, shutting Harry out of his confidences. He began to worry that Severus somehow knew that Harry had looked into the pensieve, and that ignorance was to be the punishment for violating his private memories. It was exactly what his father would have done, to have grabbed ahold of any chance to bring Severus lower than ever before. Harry removed the Quidditch photograph from his nightstand, replacing it with a Muggle, static image of his mother as a girl.

Perhaps Severus was beginning to regret their situation. Harry noticed that he lacked a personal life; he had few friends and had shown no sign of ever _dating_ anyone. All of Severus’ time was divided between his work, his obligations to the headmaster, and looking after Harry. Harry ate up so much of his time, made such a nuisance of himself that he wondered if Severus had ever been tempted to leave him at the Dursleys. He hadn’t mentioned them for months, but Christmas was coming up. He was sixteen now, old enough to be emancipated from his Muggle relatives; no one could force him to stay there. The Dursleys themselves would hardly have him in their home willingly. But then, it was less than a year until his seventeenth; less than a year until Harry would be considered _of age_ in the Wizarding world. Severus would not be obligated to spare him a thought after his seventeenth, he could have his freedom back and his peace and quiet.

Harry promised himself to be as quiet as possible from now on, to tread lightly upon the old floorboards and to speak softly.

Harry turned over in bed, staring at the green velvet bed hangings. Harry always knew if Severus and Dumbledore were away from the castle, and would have known even if he had not been told. The air seemed three degrees cooler, the stones seemed damp and forbidding rather than warm. On these nights, Harry could only hope to slip into a light sleep that did not restore.

His eyes were barely shut, the lashes only just touching when he sat bolt upright in bed. Draco stirred, but did not wake. Severus was back; they had returned to the castle. His blood began to heat until his skin was red and flushed and his scar was _burning,_ but Harry was up and at the headmaster’s office door within minutes. His password, though he was sure it was defunct, opened the door and let him pass onto the spiral stairwell. Harry only removed the cloak once he was sure Severus and the headmaster were alone.

“Harry, my boy, you ought to be abed.” Dumbledore sat before his desk, beard blackened and his crimson robe singed. Severus was struck dumb, staring at Harry in the doorway like he’d seen a ghost. His black robes hang in tatters, so ripped and ruined were they.

“What are you doing out of the dormitories? It’s past curfew-“

“I really don’t care, actually.” Snape gave him a _look_ as if he were about to take points. “Could someone tell me what’s going on? And what _that_ is?”

Hovering over the wood of Dumbledore’s desk, which was burnt black as charcoal, was a ring. It was cracked and absolutely unwearable now, but was a gold signet with an empty clasp where a stone once rested.

Dumbledore regarded Severus with reproach; it was evidently not the headmaster who chose to keep this from Harry. Severus was nearly swaying on his feet with exhaustion, but wouldn’t sit.

“And what are you doing with the sword again?” The sword of Gryffindor, its blade sullied with the soot of dark magic, lay beside the ring.

Severus finally spoke to answer Harry’s question, but his voice was slow and reluctant. “We destroyed a ring that once belonged to Riddle.”

“And the ring did _that?”_ Harry gestured to the destruction on the desk.

“It held a piece of his power.”

“Like the diary?”

Dumbledore smiled at him, his eyes too young and gleeful for such a wearied face. “Yes, Harry. The diary and now the ring, all objects that Riddle created to tie himself to the mortal plane.”

“That’s _enough,_ Albus.” Severus cut the headmaster off and Harry held back a gasp, but Dumbledore appeared unaffected.

“Do you intend to keep it from him forever? It cannot be so. The truth _will_ out.”

Severus surged forward, like a marionette cut from its strings, and crossed the office to Harry. He fumbled for a handkerchief and hastily wet it in a vial of potion before daubing it across Harry’s forehead.

“Albus, please. He doesn’t need to know this yet.”

 _“What-“_ But Harry never finished his plea for information, for the handkerchief was red and bloody. “What? What’s _bleeding!”_

Harry raised a hand, but Severus caught his arm to keep it down; he cleaned and re-wet the handkerchief, re-applying it to his forehead.

“It’s your scar, Harry. But it’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.” Severus wiped blood from the side of his face and even his neck. Again and again the handkerchief came away crimson.

* * *

Harry awoke in the infirmary, the white starched sheets and the white screens a familiar sight after rough Quidditch matches. Then as now, Severus was never too far away to supply all the necessary potions. He was there when Harry opened his eyes, his limbs jutting out awkwardly as he sat on the rickety little visitor’s chair. Visitors were only permitted for an hour each day, but Severus was asleep in the chair. His robes had the shiny, pieced-together look of hastily repaired and magically cleaned cloth; they were the very same clothes he was wearing last night, in Dumbledore’s office.

His scar still stung, and Harry would have touched it, but the crisp bedclothes rustled and Severus jolted awake.

“Don’t even think about it.”

His hand fell down to rest over the blankets. “What happened?”

Severus exhaled sharply through his nose and turned his face away from Harry to stare, unseeing, at a blank wall. “Your proximity to the ring became overwhelming. It was very _dark_ magic. It was too much for you-“ Severus cut himself off with another sharp noise.

“What is it that I’m not supposed to know?”

“Could you let it be? If you know you _will_ find out eventually?”

“Do you really need to ask that?”

Severus didn’t need to, but still he would not speak.

 _“_ Severus, please. Just give me _something_ , so I have some idea about what goes on around here, so I have a clue where the two of you go when you come back looking like you’ve been in a war zone.” Severus wasn’t the only one who worried; Harry was terrified that each time Dumbledore and Severus left the castle, they would not return.

“Your scar carries the taint of Riddle’s magic, you must be kept away from his- _artefacts._ It is a dark wound, inflicted with dark magic. Please understand; you must keep away from the work the headmaster and I have undertaken. Please, it is imperative that you do.”

Harry agreed, though he didn’t understand fully. The headmaster’s words from last night, and Severus’ half-explanation, didn’t quieten his mind at all.

“Just tell me; is it because you can’t trust me? Is that why I’m not allowed to help?” Harry felt the depletion of his magical core, but he fought sleep to ask his questions.

“I trust you completely. The scar is a _wound,_ it has not compromised you at all. This is all for your protection, to _shield_ you…”

“You really won’t tell me more?”

“Not today. I can’t.”

“Am I a nuisance?”

“You’re never a nuisance, Harry… Just get some sleep, now. Alright?” Severus was still talking, but he took one of the pillows away so that Harry was laying flat on the bed, and could no longer keep his eyes open.

* * *

It was a week after the incident in the headmaster’s office, and the first full day at the cottage following the start of the Christmas Holidays. They arrived late last night after the Yule Feast, with Severus holding both of their miniaturised trunks. As much as Harry loved Hogwarts, he was always happy to be home.

Harry was decorating the tree while Severus sat in his chair, carefully untangling an old paper chain they draped over the mantlepiece each year. Harry wasn’t sure where it had come from, but had a vague memory of making it from strips of ink-dyed letters.

“Severus?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m thinking of changing my name.” Harry kept his voice intentionally light and off-hand, but Severus immediately saw through his forced levity.

“ _Why?_ To _what?”_

“Harry Prince.” Harry felt his cheeks burning and almost wished he hadn’t mentioned it. He was sure Severus knew he had meant to say _Snape,_ but found it far too _embarrassing._ Besides, Severus didn’t even like the name Snape and there were no Princes left to care if Harry took on their name.

“That’s my mothers maiden name.”

“I _know.”_

Severus’ face was twisted in confusion. His hands fiddled with the paper chain, though he made no progress on any of the knots.

“What’s wrong with being Harry Potter?”

“I just don’t associate myself with it.” It was a ridiculous answer, a contortion of words to avoid the truth; Harry was ashamed of his father. He didn’t want his name, his face, his anything if all they signified were bad memories. But Severus wouldn’t listen, he didn’t consider it for a moment. The very suggestion seemed to disturb him.

“Keep your name, Harry.” And so the conversation was finished, but Harry was not at ease. It felt better, in his mind, to align himself with Severus rather than his own father.

* * *

Dumbledore called him in for a ‘chat’, one day after Easter. Gold light slanted into the office through thick, ancient glass and caught on the metal threads woven through Dumbledore’s robes. He was in full, high spirits that afternoon; jovial as a springtime Saint Nicholas. Harry accepted the lemon drop, letting the sweet-sour taste of it dissolve on his tongue while Dumbledore ambulated round the point of their meeting.

Finally, he said something of relevance. “I’ve been wondering, my boy, what your plans are for life after Hogwarts?” The lemon drop suddenly tasted more sour than sweet and he wished he could spit the vile thing out. He hated to think of his graduation; the time beyond was murky and frightful, a blank and unknown wilderness.

“I’ve not got plans, as such.”

Dumbledore made a show of stroking his beard, musingly. “No plans, eh? We’re coming up to your last year as a student, my boy. Surely you have some idea of what you’d like your life to look like upon the completion of your NEWTS?”

“I really don’t. I don’t know what I want to do.”

Dumbledore’s blue eyes were as pale as the liquid of a pensive; the pupils so contracted in the strong light that they were barely visible. “You don’t know what you want, Harry? Or you don’t know what your options are?”

Dumbledore was fishing for a particular answer, something incredibly _specific. “_ Both, I think.”

“Would you like to be an Auror?”

“Not particularly.”

“Quidditch player?”

“I think that’s just a hobby.” After every answer a small smile of satisfaction grew beneath Dumbledore’s whiskers.

“May I surmise you don’t wish to leave us at all?”

Hope sprang up in Harry and he gripped the sides of his chair in a vain attempt to mask his eagerness. “I can stay here? What would I do?”

“May I suggest an apprenticeship? You have quite the knack for potions, I’ve been told.” His eyes glittered at Harry; he was sure Dumbledore was enjoying a great personal joke.

“Severus has never said he wanted an apprentice, he’s got such a lot to do as it is.”

“He’s never said? Have you ever asked?”

He hadn’t, though not asking hadn’t stopped him wishing that such a thing could happen. “Well, no. I’m not sure he’d like to and I’ve been a trouble already.”

“Trouble? You think you’ve been a trouble?”

“Well, no, um, he’s said no- _but_ I take up a lot of time and effort. He might be happy to see the back of me.”

Dumbledore laughed uproariously, clasping his hands in a paroxysm of glee. It was mildly discomforting.

“I think you ought to ask, Harry.” Dumbledore was still _giggling_ as he unwrapped another sweet. There was an audible crunch of boiled sugar as it was ground between his molars.

Harry hesitated.

“Unless you would like me to ask Severus on your behalf?”

“No, sir. Thank-you, I’ll do it.”

“Very good, my boy. Very good.”

So he asked Severus that very night.

“An apprenticeship? I’ve no doubt you’ll perform outstandingly in your NEWTS…” Severus was in his chair by the fireplace, but his book lay closed in his lap. He stroked down the gilded letters on the spine as he thought. “But, Harry, do you _really_ wish to become my apprentice?”

Of all the issues Harry thought Severus may have with his proposal, Harry’s willingness to becomeapprenticed to Severus was not one of them.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I? We go well together, don’t we…” They worked so well in the laboratory; during the weekends Severus permitted Harry to assist him in his brewing for the infirmary, or his research. They were somehow never in each other’s way, never working at cross purposes. When Severus needed a knife, or a stirring rod, he had only to turn around and there it would be, with Harry holding outstretched the required implement.

Severus was nervous; his hands wouldn’t keep still and his face was unnaturally blank. It would have been better to have this conversation in the laboratory. Harry could have said; ‘see how easy this is? How great? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could work like this _all_ the time?’ Severus would have _had_ to agree with him then; there would have been no denying it when he looked down at their perfectly ordered workbench, at the potion gently simmering in its copper cauldron.

“This isn’t about my need for an assistant, Harry; this is about you and your career. Don’t you want to see the world, to travel? You could be apprenticed to _anyone._ I know a master in Russia who would just love to have you…” Severus trailed off at the look on Harry’s face; he didn’t know what exactly Severus saw, but he _felt_ horrified.

“You’re sending me away? To _Russia?”_ Harry didn’t think there were any potions masters of the calibre required that were further away than that.

“I’m not _sending_ you anywhere. This is _your_ life, not mine. Why would you want to stay here when you could have something so much better?”

“You may as well be sending me away. Just tell me if you don’t want to, it’ll be easier. I’ll think of something, I’ll…”

“Once you’ve graduated-“ Severus swallowed roughly, and wouldn’t meet Harry’s eyes. “You may feel differently. You might see that it really is for the best if you _travel_ for a while, live your own life…”

Harry felt as he did on Petunia’s sofa, with a curling sandwich or a tepid drink; he felt dismissed, as if he had outstayed his welcome.

“You must miss having a house to yourself- it’s okay, I understand. I’m always underfoot, I know, all my Quidditch things and whatnot… You’ve been good to put up with it all as long as you have, really; I can start paying you rent if you like, or-“

“Harry! _Stop_ it.” Severus stood from his chair, and the book fell against the floorboards with a thunk and the sound of crushed paper. He looked vaguely ill as he spoke. “Have I given you the impression that you were to be turned out on your ear when you reach the age the age of majority?”

Harry was chastened as the implications of everything he said sank in. He had hurt Severus in some way he couldn’t comprehend, but there was real and undeniable pain in his expression. “No. It’s nothing you’ve done. I’m just being selfish.”

Severus sank down onto the sofa beside him, stalling for time while he thought. “What’s brought all this on?”

“I had a meeting with Dumbledore today and he asked me what my plans were for after graduation… Severus?”

Severus had screwed his eyes shut at the mention of Dumbledore’s name. “The meddling old… This is exactly what I never wanted. You need to decide for yourself what you want to do without myself _or_ the headmaster- _meddling!”_

“He’s not brainwashing me into a potions apprenticeship!” Severus’ scoff said ‘that’s what _you_ think.’ “Really! I’ve wanted to for years, I just don’t want to be a _burden…_ I’d hate it.”

“Don’t ever think you’d benefit more from being apprenticed to me than I would. It would be selfish of _me_ to have ever suggested it; I almost cannot in good conscience allow myself to agree to it.”

Severus was worn down until it was clear that there was only one viable option left; Harry would be apprenticed to Severus following his graduation from Hogwarts. Severus’ acquiescence did not entirely assuage Harry’s fears, but that day elucidated the very root of them. Harry was afraid of being sent away, taken away, or otherwise separated from Severus. He simply could not imagine his life without him, could not imagine living apart from him. The thought itself was frightening and overwhelming, and he could understand why Severus had almost pleaded with him to travel. But Harry knew he would not willingly part from Severus. It was as if his very early loss had taught him to cling all the more ferociously to the good in his life, and to employ every means at his disposal to keep it.

* * *

There was a bittersweet atmosphere to Harry’s seventeenth birthday. Draco came early to give Harry another obscenely expensive Malfoy present, another ostentatious emerald. He stayed for some of Severus’ cake, and as the three of them sat round the bare wooden table, Harry was reminded of each of his previous birthdays in their homey yellow kitchen. It was the scene of so many memories, both fond and sad.

“Don’t you think it’s strange, that this time next year we’ll have graduated from Hogwarts?”

Draco turned to raise an eyebrow at him, missing the look of pure dread on Severus’ face.

“I can’t wait to get on with my life. I’m spending at least half a year at the chateau once I’m free, Mother has a list of improvements she wants carried out to her standards in my taste. It’ll be mine one day, so of course I’ll have to _like_ it.”

“And after that?”

Draco collected up a forkful of icing. “I’ll be able to study what I like, travel where I like, live how I like… And you’ll be a potions master, I assume?”

“That’s the plan.” Harry looked at Severus, as if daring him to question his commitment.

Draco left around noon, and Harry waited until then to open Severus’ present. Harry unwrapped the slim box slowly, ever conscious of Severus’ expectant gaze upon him. Harry recognised the object inside at once; it was a razor-sharp knife of elven glass, a rarity and almost priceless. Harry saw it for what it really was; an acceptance of Harry as his apprentice, as a potioneer in his own right. The gift overwhelmed, and soothed the aching fear of rejection and abandonment that seeped through his mind like a poison.

“It’s so perfect, thank you Severus.” The words were whispered into Severus’ shoulder as Harry hugged him; it was rare that Severus would sit still long enough to allow something like this and even now he was tense, but Harry didn’t want to let him go.

“I think I’d like to stay here and look after you, once I’m through with my apprenticeship.”

Severus reached out, trying to hold Harry at arms length. “Don’t say silly things like that.”

“Why not? I really mean it.”

Severus looked away. “I’d rather you have a life.”

“Why do you keep saying that? I like my life as it is. Severus?”

The strangest look came over Severus’ face, and his mouth was a pinched, tight line. He was like a statue, as still and unmoving as a petrified body.Even a cup of strong tea barely thawed him.

“If I leave, Severus, who’s going to look after you? Who’s going to make sure you eat enough? Who’s going to make sure you take breaks from your work?”

“You’re not my governess. I won’t have you nannying me like I’m an invalid, it’s no good for you.”

“But what’s _wrong_? There’s something wrong.” 

“There’s nothing for you to worry about.” Severus gripped the teacup with both hands; it was a wonder the delicate porcelain didn’t crack.

“But there is something.” Severus’ silence was all the confirmation Harry needed. “It’s what you won’t talk about, isn’t it? There’s something the matter, you just won’t tell me.”

“Just take each day as it comes. There’s no _sense_ in worrying about it.” It was a strange thing for Severus to say, as he seemed to do little else _but_ worry.

“Will you ever tell me?”

A terse nod was all he got, and a despondent stare into the teacup. If Harry tried to forcibly extract information from Severus, all his efforts would be in vain. Watchful waiting, and the grasping of opportunities were Harry’s only recourse.

* * *

When he returned to the Slytherin dormitories, Harry keenly felt the wrench of separation. He couldn’t settle at night, and was despondent in the day. Draco was highly irritated by it, demanding to be told why Harry was keeping him up into the small hours of the morning. Harry barely knew himself; he couldn’t intellectualise the reason why, it was a feeling more than a thought. Dumbledore watched him during meals, when Harry would pick at his food lethargically. He didn’t understand any of this, didn’t understand his own life. The familiar rituals of the Hogwarts school year felt restrictive and awkward, like a pair of shoes that pinched. He was on the cusp of it all becoming clear and understandable, and until it was, Harry couldn’t act.

The agony of stillness and of the fruitless _waiting_ continued through the turning of the seasons; it was Autumn proper before Dumbledore shocked him out of his stasis. Harry was summoned for another meeting, and this time Severus was present. He didn’t look happy at all, and for the first time Dumbledore actually seemed _annoyed._

“Ah, Harry! No need to look so perturbed. Take a seat.” Harry took the seat indicated, next to Severus.

“I’ve been having a discussion with Severus here, and we came to the _agreement_ that you, yourself, ought to read and sign any letters written on your behalf.”

There was indeed a roll of parchment pinned open on the desk by four of Dumbledore’s knick-knacks. It was written in green ink, and the green-tipped Quill still rested by the well.

“It’s for Bellatrix Lestrange. _Why_ are we writing letters to a Death Eater in Azkaban?”

“My sentiments exactly.” Severus huffed, and received an exasperated glare from Dumbledore.

“Why use force when we needn’t? Harry, the letter is a humble request for an object from Lestrange’s vault, one that it is _imperative_ we obtain.”

“An _object_ that once belonged to Riddle?”

“You’re a quick study, Harry. You’ve been kept in the dark far too long-“

“Albus-“

“No, Severus. This much at least must be said.” The ink was drying on the letter, only the heavy pools at the beginning of the pen-strokes were still wet. Harry scanned the page, but it provided little illumination.

“You want Helga Hufflepuff’s cup?”

“The cup may be conceived of as a _vessel,_ that is the use to which Riddle put each of the items we seek. He used them as a vessel for his split and shattered soul, in an effort to attain immortality. In other words, a Horcrux.”

“ _Albus,_ I told you no good could come of Harry hearing that name.” Severus was nearly frantic behind the last vestiges of a cool facade. “It serves _no_ purpose to burden him with that.”

“And why can’t I know the _name?_ What, in case I go looking it up? What’s the worst-“

Severus’ eyes were very black, and despairing. “Under no circumstances are you to seek information on that ritual, it is the very _darkest_ of magic. There is no book left in the Hogwarts library that will so much as mention its name. Do not sully yourself with it-“ There was an unspoken _yet_ at the terminus of that sentence, that told Harry there were yet more secrets.

“These _Horcruxes,_ could he use them to come back?”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, they are the reason he is not dead and may return to corporeal life.”

“Then we’ll _destroy_ them.” Severus smothered a noise with the back of his hand, as if Harry’s words had caused him physical agony. “We have to, right? We’ve got to just get rid of them-“

“We will, Harry; _each_ of them. We will not allow the existence of any avenue through which Tom Riddle could cling to life.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Albus’ smile perfectly evoked the grandfather he had never known. “Simply sign the letter.”

He picked up the quill and leant over the parchment, ready to sign his name without delay but Dumbledore’s voice stilled his hand.

“Sign Roi d’émeraude, Harry.”

“I don’t claim that name. It’s _awful,_ worse than the damned _boy who lived._ I don’t claim it at _all.”_

 _“Harry,_ Lucius Malfoy, for all his fanaticism has done us a greater favour than he will ever know in coining that phrase. Claim it, _use_ it, and use it to the subversion of all that Riddle stood for. Now, _sign.”_

Harry bit his lip, scrawled the hated moniker across the parchment and watched the emerald ink seep irrevocably in.

* * *

Harry was not permitted to be anywhere _near_ Dumbledore’s office whilst the cup was destroyed. He was sequestered in his dormitory; able to do nothing but picture Severus wielding the sword of Gryffindor against the last vestiges of Riddle’s existence, bringing the blade down and obliterating the artefact so entirely the headmaster’s desk burns and warps. His scar began to itch just before midnight. He raised his fingertips to touch, but they came away dry and clean.

There were other objects that had been destroyed; they told Harry that much, but would not say how many there were in total. Perhaps they didn’t know. Would anyone know if Riddle were to die, completely? Would there be any sign at all? Harry thought of the mark upon Severus’ forearm, that he had seen only once; would it be etched into his skin forever, or would it one day heal?

* * *

Harry waited until the morning, as he had been told, but he could not wait to talk to Severus. He got up a full two hours earlier than usual and headed for Severus’ rooms. Draco hadn’t stirred, but he could sleep through a stampede. The common room was deserted, and so were the corridors. Breakfast wouldn’t be served for some time, so there was no reason for even the earliest riser to be out of their rooms. Harry hadn’t risen early, he had barely slept. Whatever the headmaster said, destroying such a dark artefact as a Horcrux was _sure_ to be dangerous. Who knows what demonic curses Riddle could have infested it with, who knows whether the blackness of his magic would be able to harm Severus through the Dark Mark? These worries spurred Harry on through the cold and damp of the dungeons to Severus’ door. He knew the password, of course, and couldn’t wait to knock.

Harry all but burst in, charging through the spare, spartan living room. Severus’ rooms were the antithesis of their cottage; they were impersonal to the point of lifelessness. Any Slytherin head of house, past or future could live here. There was barely anything to mark the space as belonging toSeverus, in particular.

“Severus!” He was always up at dawn; Harry had never in his life woken before Severus. But he wasn’t at his desk, and he wasn’t in the kitchenette either.

There was a heavy stirring from the bedroom. Severus emerged in a haze of sleep, staggering into the bright foyer with the lumbering movements of the just-awoken.

“Merlin, are you alright?” He was still in his pyjamas and a dressing gown, with uncombed hair and bare feet. The only time Harry ever saw Severus in his pyjamas was Christmas morning, and even then he combed his hair.

“What’s going on? It’s too bloody _early…”_ Severus’ voice was thick and rough with sleep, and though he spoke in Harry’s general direction his eyes were squinted shut against the light.

Harry drifted closer, “It’s no earlier than you’re usually up, it’s only early for me.” Harry couldn’t see any wounds, but Severus looked just _exhausted._ “Are you really alright? Madam Pomfrey should look at you-“

Severus leant against the wall as if he were about to sleep standing up, like a horse. “And tell her what? It just takes it out of you, that magic…”

Harry knew he meant the Horcruxes. The magical energy required to dispatch that blackened soul was terrific; Riddle wasn’t going to succumb to mortality without a fight. Severus’ magical core was bruised and tender, his body struggling against the sapping of its energy as resources were re-directed towards the replenishing of Severus’ magical strength.

“You shouldn’t go into work today- but you will, won’t you? You’ll be stubborn and insist that you will…”

Harry trailed off, realising that he was babbling. Severus’ eyes were still shut, and Harry had no good reason to stop _staring_ at him. He didn’t know why he couldn’t look away, he just took Severus’ arm and led him back to bed. “You can have another hour’s sleep, at least, before you need to be up.”

Harry wondered how many other Horcruxes Severus had disposed of; wondered how he coped with using himself so harshly, never allowing himself a moment’s respite. When Severus worked himself to exhaustion he survived on a cocktail of pepper-up and caffeine, but today he would rest.

Severus was too tired to protest, just slumped back into his pillows; he was asleep again before Harry pulled up the coverlet. His hair was still damp and had coiled into thick black snarls against the pillows. Harry imagined him stumbling back to his chambers in the early hours of the morning, washing soot and black magic from his skin and hair before collapsing into bed. His boots lay discarded in the doorway, only half unlaced and crudely kicked off. Harry righted them in an effort to stay busy, but soon all he could do was occupy an armchair and watch Severus sleep.

It scared him sometimes, that he truly wished to never be apart from Severus. He could agree that it was the normal, expected thing for a young man to leave home and venture into unknown places with strange people; it just didn’t appeal in the slightest. The only thing to trouble Harry in his contentment were Severus’ insinuations that he should _not_ be content.

Harry never could simply sit and watch Severus, least of all when he was so open and relaxed. In such a deep sleep as this, too deep even for dreams, all the tension was gone from his face and body. Where his arms rested pliantly on the bedclothes; Harry could see the sharp bone of his wrist, without its usual covering of a cuff or a sleeve. Severus kept the world away, and had sheltered Harry from the worst of the public’s mercurial moods. Harry understood his reserve and his coolness with strangers, but why keep Harry away from him? There were secrets between them, and it was _wrong._

Harry felt the stirring of something familiar, an unnameable shiver through his soul; it was unnameable, though he had felt it before. It was the most tangible in moments of complete quiet and stillness, when Harry had neither work nor conversation to distract him. Now he could tap into it almost without filter, it was enough to overwhelm.

_Never send me away, never leave me…_

Harry crept closer until he knelt at Severus’ bedside, vacillating. He was close enough to count the individual lashes that rested upon the pale cheek, to see every turn of the topography of Severus’ profile. Severus was asleep; he wouldn’t remember and he couldn’t object but maybe, when he woke, some part of him would remember that he was loved.

Harry leant in, and pressed a kiss to Severus’ cheek, feeling the rasp of stubble against his bitten lips. He lingered, and took in the smell of Severus’ skin and his not-quite-dry hair; he wanted to kiss the corner of his mouth, and then press their lips completely together. But he couldn’t do that to Severus, couldn’t do something that Severus would hate him for. So he knelt in silence, for an hour or more until the elves made breakfast.

He summoned the food to Severus’ rooms, unwilling to rouse him a minute sooner than necessary. Harry only left when Severus was sitting up in bed with a tray across his lap, half-heartedly dipping a soldier of toast into a boiled egg. He would be lethargic in class today, but his extra hours of sleep would prevent him from toppling over on his lectern.

* * *

When Harry began to really look at Severus, it was difficult to stop. Every day there was something new to notice, such as the particular way he held a quill, or the way his boots curved over his instep. Each discovery was analysed to its minutest detail, and it was this tableaux of details that leant a new thrill to the memory of his lips against Severus’ skin. He was becoming obsessed.

If Harry thought his new state of mind would be unnoticed, he was mistaken. A stranger, an acquaintance, or a causal friend may not have understood, but Draco was a budding legilimens and an incisive interpreter of people. He was also one of Harry’s oldest, and his very nearest, friend. It didn’t take Draco long to make his inferences; it took far longer for him to surmount his pureblood tact and delicacy of manner. But finally, Draco broke.

Draco was watching his green tie fold itself around his neck in a perfect Windsor knot, his pale brows drawn together in consternation. He made a few noises, the abortive beginnings of sentences, before he cleared his throat and spoke.

“I can’t quite believe I’m asking this question, but… Are you sleeping with Severus?”

The hesitation before the denial was a fraction of a second too long.

“You _are._ ” Draco met his eyes in the mirror, but started to fiddle with his tie, manoeuvring it further into the hollow of his collar.

“Obviously not, for godssake.” Draco hated that Muggle phrase, but could not be distracted.

“It’s actually _not_ obvious.” Draco had pulled the tie too tight now, and its perfect symmetry was ruined. He picked apart the small, constrictive knot around his throat with a huff of frustration. “You act like you’re _carrying on_ with him. It’s unseemly; people will _notice.”_

“You’ve gone mad. He wouldn’t.” Harry’s voice sounded alarmingly high and reedy, even to his own ears.

“Wouldn’t he?” Draco’s tie was moving again, this time into a four-in-hand.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry’s heart was racing; he could feel his pulse at his wrists where the blood was rushing close to his skin. “ _Draco!”_

 _“_ Father over-indulged this new-year past; he was a little _liberal_ with his story-telling and he may have _said_ some things.”

“So he was drunk?”

Draco grimaced. “I suppose.”

“And what did he _say?”_

“Nothing you don’t already know, I’m sure.” Harry’s face was blank and stony, impatient. “Severus _prefers the company of men._ ”

Though Severus had never shown any hint of having a romantic life, the information wasn’t shocking. It seemed to fit so well with what he understood of Severus. He never watched women the way other men did, never stared longingly at Veela girls or even acknowledged beauties like Narcissa Malfoy.

“That doesn’t mean he wants anything to do with _me,_ just because he likes men.”

“The way you’ve been staring at him recently, I think you’d hardly object. I half-expected that you’d have propositioned him already.” Harry was speechless. “You’re _really_ not sleeping with him?”

“I’m _really_ not.”

“But you’d like to be.”

Harry was unable to deny it. He _had_ been thinking of Severus, and his obsession had a clear sexual undercurrent that drove the intensity of his preoccupation. He would take whatever Severus was willing to give him.

Draco sighed. “I don’t think any efforts in that direction would be completely in vain.”

“You don’t think it’s _odd,_ then?”

“The wizarding world has known stranger matches. You’d know that too, if you bothered to pay attention in history of magic.”

* * *

“Don’t start staring again, please. I don’t enjoy public indecency with my breakfast.” Draco was sullenly chewing his jam-on-toast, leaning well over the table so as not to get jam on his robes. Apparently, _scourgify_ wore out the fibres.

This was the first time Harry saw Severus in the certain knowledge that he was attracted to men, how could he avoid watching him for any suggestion that Severus could return his interest?

“Draco, what stories was your father telling? Specifically?”

Draco cast _muffliato,_ with a vicious flick of his wand. “I only tell you because, if I don’t, I’ll never hear the last of it. It wasn’t exactly public knowledge, but Severus was _involved_ with Regulus Black-“

“ _Black._ As in Sirius Black?”

“Yes, _Potter;_ Black as in ‘the ancient and most noble house of Black’. I hear it was quite serious, for a time. If poor old Reg hadn’t met such a nasty end, it would have been quite a match.”

It certainly would have been; Severus may have won his way back into the Prince family’s good graces with such an auspicious match.

“Do you know what he was like? At all?”

“You’re absolutely shameless and completely transparent.”

“Just tell me.”

“If you must know; he was a Slytherin, a seeker, slight build, had black hair, etcetera. In short, yes; I do believe you are Severus’ _type.”_

When Harry could still tell himself he had no chance, it was easier for him; the veil of impossibility was a check on his emotions. Fantasy began to overtake him once he learned there was even the dimmest possibility that Severus would want to be with him in every way possible, for them to be all things to each other for life. There would be no reason for Harry to ever leave, because they would have everything in one other. The idea was seductive, beguiling; it began to consume him.

Harry was not generally prone to arrogance; Severus had always stressed the importance of being aware of your limitations, that you may guard against failure. All his humility was cast aside for the certainty that he could give Severus everything he needed, if he would only but realise. The realisation would have to be organic; nothing else would match the natural intensity of Harry’s feelings. There were to be no stilted, childish confessions as if Harry were only a student with a crush. Something so important could not be handled so crudely; the rest of their life’s happiness hung in the balance.

Harry didn’t know a thing about seduction. He was still a virgin and had only ever been kissed once, and then only very briefly, at a Slytherin dormitory party. He was no sophisticated succubus; he wasn’t even a natural flirt. His reputation as a withdrawn, secretive, intense teen who may or may not be proficient in the dark arts, had made him generally unapproachable. Consequently, Harry lagged behind the social skills of his peers, much to Draco’s constant chagrin. Anyone of Draco’s social finesse would instantly see through Harry’s clumsy attempts at romance, but Severus was isolated and reclusive with a tendency toward misanthropy. _Severus_ had not been hardened by swarms of fawning bootlickers; would he still be malleable by such inexpert lovers as Harry? There was hope yet.

* * *

It was nearly time for dinner, and Harry was alone in the dormitory. He studied himself in Draco’s full length mirror, turning round and back again in his Hogwarts uniform. He wasn’t anything special; he wasn’t exceptionally tall or muscular, he wasn’t striking or imposing. Now that he had come into his adult features he could admit they were as handsome as his father’s, but blandly so; Harry had none of his rakish charm or insouciance that would carry them off to advantage. But maybe that was just as well, Severus certainly hadn’t been _charmed_ by his father.

Harry had to hurry to dinner, and was one of the last to be seated. He was on the verge of true lateness, and as he strode across the crowded hall he could feel the weight of many eyes upon him. Such a late entry was conspicuous, and even more so when every student was looking at him and wondering; _what has he been up to?_ He drew closer to his usual seat opposite Draco; they habitually sat close to the high table, right in Severus’ eye-line.

Severus was a remote figure in his professorial robes, seated beside his colleagues. His face was stern as he surveyed his pupils, and when his gaze fixed upon Harry, he could easily read a reproach amongst the harsh arrangement of features; Severus disliked him being late. He would wonder where Harry had gone, what he was doing, _why_ he was late; then, he would worry.

Harry kept his posture straight and his face neutral as he took his seat. He ignored Draco’s questioning look. The hall was a tumult of whispers; the meal had not yet been served and the wait was filled with gossiping. They clearly had nothing better to do.

Harry caught Severus’ eye again, and held his gaze for a long moment, challenging. Surely, if Draco had noticed Harry’s _staring_ Severus had too. If he wanted to be ignorant, or to pretend to confusion, then what could Harry do? He was painfully conscious of the constriction of his uniform shirt around his throat and wrists, of the impossibility of facing Severus at his high table and demanding explanations. Severus chose not to see him, time and time again. _There’s more to me than you realise,_ he wanted to say, _don’t you ever think of the future?_ Severus looked away first, and stared down at his hands where they rested on the tabletop.

It was the uniform, that hated emblem of immaturity, that came between them. Harry became convinced of it that day at dinner, when Severus had refused to even look at him as an equal. The uniform was the most insurmountable barrier to Harry’s hopes; it would thwart each of his plans. So Harry was on his best behaviour at Hogwarts; in each of his lessons he was perfectly dutiful and chaste, losing himself in his work. He waited.

* * *

The Christmas holidays began as they always did, with the closing feast and the hauling of trunks up from the dungeons to the gates. Severus was usually buoyant with relief as he left the castle grounds, free from the constant minding of dunderheaded pupils, but now he seemed reluctant to leave. His step was weary and his shoulders were tense as they neared the cottage.

Harry left Snape in the hall and ran up-stairs with his trunk. The uniform was banished to the laundry; he could hardly wait to get it off. With his graduation so near, it felt like a costume.

Harry unloaded his trunk, removing several tissue wrapped packages he stored atop his Quidditch gear.

Draco loved being asked for help and was champing at the bit for a chance to _improve_ Harry. The new clothes were entirely his work, all Harry did was owl his galleons to Madam Malkin.

 _“I’m so glad you’ve decided to finally join civilisation and stop dressing like you’ve crashed into the Quidditch pitch.”_ Harry unwrapped the tissue-paper, curious to see what _improvements_ Draco thought necessary.

There was a lot of black and a lot of green. Of course there was. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the clothing skewed more casual than he expected from Draco, clearly he had taken Harry’s preferences into account. There were simple but well-cut trousers, breeches and boots for active work and a lot of fine, cashmere jumpers. It was the wardrobe of a serious, adult wizard but cleaved perfectly to Harry’s vigorous lifestyle. Harry dressed in a pair of the trousers and one of the black cashmere jumpers. The package containing the jumpers came with a hand-written note; “ _These are strictly for homewear only. They are no substitute for robes.”_

Harry would usually have trailed around the house in his favourite, ratty dressing gown with the tie dragging behind him on the floor. He saw it hanging limply on the door and winced; perhaps he really did need a change. These clothes were no less comfortable, but exposed his frame instead of making him look scruffy and gauche.

Instead of stampeding down the stairs, Harry kept to a calm and sensible pace. He paused at the threshold of the living room; he was actually wearing shoes indoors and couldn’t very well throw himself onto the sofa in a heap. Joining the civilised world, indeed. Harry sat on the sofa with his back against the backrest and his feet on the floor.

“Going out?” Severus was idly flicking through a compendium of rare herbs.

Harry picked up a book of his own. “No, staying in.”

Severus arched one of his thick, dark brows but made no comment.

He had little reaction to the clothes, in general. Far from marking the end of his teenage slovenliness, Severus didn’t seem to see him in a new light at all. He spoke to Harry in exactly the same way he always had; he didn’t seem interested in looking at Harry. He must be more ordinary than he thought, if such a drastic change wasn’t worth looking up from _“Rare Herbs and Plant-life.”_

Severus may not be interested in him, that was a distinct possibility. He may never be, and Harry would simply learn to live with it. But was Severus made of _stone?_ Was he a _machine?_ Even Harry’s casual acquaintances took more of an interest in Harry’s transformation than Severus. Draco certainly seemed pleased with his work; he invited Harry to a private wizarding club in London that he had once said would throw Harry out with the rubbish if he arrived _looking like he’d been attacked by an Hippogriff._

The days wore on and Christmas was fast approaching. Soon, the holidays would be over and he would be no closer to knowing Severus’ mind; it would be another opportunity wasted. Harry resorted to such obvious tactics as reaching up to high shelves for potions ingredients, stretching his lean body to its limits. All Severus did was transfigure a step ladder from an old set of brass scales. How obvious, how blatant, did he need to be before Severus would deign to acknowledge his interest? There was simply no _possible_ way he did not already know. He was just being difficult.

* * *

Christmas Eve was supposed to be a quiet, intimate night in, but Lucius Malfoy insisted that Severus and Harry make an appearance at their Christmas soiree. Harry dressed in his new, slim-cut dress robes with the Malfoy’s emerald green jewels in his cravat and on his finger. Severus wore his usual black buttoned robes, his only condescension to occasion was to swap his boots for shoes. Harry stuck close to his side during the long walk up the Malfoy’s drive, hoping that Severus would give in and take his arm; he didn’t, though Harry’s elbow brushed Severus’ sleeve more than once.

Harry ended up dejectedly sipping champagne while Severus listened to Lucius bemoaning the Ministry’s modernising reforms. It was excruciatingly boring. Narcissa appeared at his shoulder to convince him to ask Draco for a dance. Draco would never ask him; he was a natural dancer and couldn’t bear to partner anyone as stiff and lumbering as Harry.

They turned round the Malfoy’s hall in a stilted waltz. Harry wanted to be back with his glass of champagne, drinking himself into a stupor. Perhaps he’d be a better dancer if he were drunk.

“If you step on my feet one more time, _Potter…”_

 _“_ You’ll hex them off. I know.”

Severus didn’t even look jealous.

* * *

They got home too late to do anything but have a cup of hot chocolate and head to bed. Harry flung his clothes off and collapsed into his sheets, dejected. It was only for that last hour that the day had felt like a proper Christmas eve, sitting in front of the fire with Severus. Every time one of their traditions was disrupted, Harry felt robbed. Things could only get better tomorrow.

The morning came and Harry was up and downstairs the minute he awoke. Every year he tried his best to beat Severus, and every year he would already be awake. This year was no exception. Severus, like every year before, was still in his pyjamas. Harry half suspected that he never went to sleep on Christmas Eve at all.

“Merry Christmas, Severus.”

He was in his chair by the fire, drinking a cup of tea. There was none of the Malfoy grandeur in him, really, and a lot of honest warmth. Harry was across the room; before he could caution himself, he had his arms about Severus’ neck to hug him.

“Merry Christmas, Harry.” Severus held his hand out to the side, careful not to spill a drop of his tea. _Who cares about a cup of tea?_ Harry wanted to say, “ _Stop being awkward and hug me properly.”_ But he didn’t say it, he greedily took whatever physical closeness Severus would allow.

And it was over too soon.

Severus stood, muttering something about needing to check on the gravy. Harry sat in Severus’ vacated chair, surveying the room from his perspective. The leather was still warm from his body heat and the fire was hot against the side of Harry’s legs. This chair was just another way for Severus’ to keep him away; by caging himself in this chair Severus enforced a cool distance between them, two metres of unsurmountable physical separation.

The dinner was lovely, as it always was when Severus cooked. They dressed properly for Christmas dinner, nothing less would do justice to the elaborate spread of food Severus managed each year. Everything was homemade, down to the Cranberry sauce. Harry helped where he was allowed, but Severus dominated the kitchen entirely and shooed Harry away whenever he tried to so much as stir the gravy. So Harry spent most of his day watching Severus cook, with the Muggle radio playing in the background.

Minerva came for her Christmas Sherry and a piece of Christmas Pudding. She chatted with Severus and Harry was content simply to sit and soak in the atmosphere. Severus was unusually chatty, keeping her talking well into the evening. When she said her goodbyes at the door, her gaze lingered fondly on both Severus and Harry as they stood in their doorway.

The door shut with the snick of a lock and the hum of wards settling back into place, enveloping the entire house in their sturdy and protective magic.

“White Christmas?” Harry asked hopefully; it was tradition, after all.

Severus relaxed shoulders that Harry hadn’t realised were high and tense. “I’ll set up the projector.”

Severus fussed with the bizarre fusion of Muggle and Magical technologies. Harry set the sofa up with a careful arrangement of cushions, blankets and Honeydukes chocolate.

Severus, with the projector finally ready, sat rather stiffly in Harry’s usual place on the sofa. The projector whirred into life as the film started, and Harry dimmed the lights with a whispered _nox._

Severus was a darker shape in the dark room, and Harry couldn’t see his face. Sitting in the gloom with the softly glowing light before them, Harry thought it was almost like a Muggle cinema date. He settled back into the cushions, trying to watch Severus from the corner of his eye. His posture was as straight and perfect as it always was; he held himself rigid through sheer will alone, though he was in his own living room on Christmas day.

The settee wasn’t so large that Harry would have to awkwardly shift himself closer to Severus to touch him, it was a slightly small two-seater antique. Harry was so relaxed already that it was only natural for his head to rest upon Severus’ shoulder. He laid his cheek against the smooth black wool of Severus’ dress robes and felt the soft black hair that shrouded Severus’ neck. Severus didn’t put an arm around him, or rest his cheek against Harry’s head; he barely moved at all. Harry’s only consolation was that Severus didn’t push him off or retreat to his armchair. It was so simple, after all, just to rest against someone’s shoulder. It was nothing alarming, with nothing in it that should disturb or otherwise discomfit Severus. So Harry remained there until the close of the film, insensible of anything but the smell of herbs and sherry.

* * *

Harry tried his very best to flirt with Severus, but the infuriating man was completely unresponsive. When Harry handed him a cup of tea he would place a lingering touch on an arm or a shoulder, he would stand close to him in the laboratory and even brushed a piece of hair away from Severus’ face while he was busy chopping phlox. But Harry was being completely ignored.

With each passing day Harry became more and more frustrated. Being _ignored_ was worse than a plain rejection, it wasn’t a dismissal; it was as if Severus wanted to pretend he didn’t exist.

The holidays would soon be over, and Harry would once again be sequestered in his dorm with Draco. He should have been sorted into Gryffindor; what sort of a Slytherin was he, if none of his plans came to fruition? As humiliating as his routine was, he found he couldn’t give up. Each time Severus ignored him, it only goaded Harry into pushing that little bit harder until he had his definitiveanswer.

Harry dressed with slow care and wondered, if Severus’ answer was _never,_ would Harry be free of his singular fixation on the person closest to him in the world? Would Harry be able, then, to be with someone else? The very thought felt like a lead weight sunk deep in his chest. Harry met his own eyes in the mirror with determination and undid two of his shirt buttons. Today it was Severus’ birthday, and they had the whole day to themselves.

Severus didn’t seem particularly glad that it was his birthday; he shrunk away from the attention and tried to convince Harry not to celebrate.

“It’s a day like any other. I see no reason to make a fuss over nothing.”

“But we always celebrate _my_ birthday; why don’t you ever want to do anything for yours?”

Severus winced, but didn’t protest further when Harry said he would like to cook dinner. Harry very rarely cooked, and then only the very simplest snacks for himself, but how hard could it be? Harry could follow instructions when making potions and it wasn’t so very far removed from brewing.

It was more difficult than Harry expected. His ambitious menu necessitated running back and forth between multiple pans, managing up to five cooking spells at any one time. Severus loitered in the doorway and watched with growing amusement.

“Not so easy as it looks, is it?”

“I don’t want any help!” Harry kept Severus out of the kitchen, conscious that if Severus were allowed to come in he would start _making suggestions._ The suggestions would lead to _tweaking_ of Harry’s seasoning, then to adding herbs and spices until Severus was cooking the meal himself.Harry saw him craning his neck to see the interior of a saucepan. “Get back in the living room.”

Severus reluctantly drifted out of the kitchen, unsure of what to do with himself. Harry was sure he didn’t know _how_ to relax; he was always _doing something._ But Harry wouldn’t take pity on him, he wouldn’t even give Severus the potatoes to peel. It was his birthday, and Harry would not be sitting down and watching Severus cook.

Dinner was nearly ready and Harry began to set the table. A tablecloth was necessary enough, but Harry dithered over candles and the centrepiece. Would Severus appreciate something overtly romantic? Harry chewed on his lower lip. Candles, no flowers. That seemed safe enough, while still getting his point across.

Severus didn’t verbally object to the table setting. He said nothing at all about it, only thanked Harry for making dinner. About Harry’s increasingly plain attempts at gaining his attention, Severus was silent. Harry wondered if Severus’ stoic reactions to his overtures were really permission for Harry to be a little more direct? Severus was far less inclined to take chances than Harry. If there could be a shred of doubt that he might be misinterpreting Harry’s intentions, he would _never_ respond.

Each course was one of Severus’ favourites, mostly French and difficult-to-cook recipes. Harry served each one, leaning over Severus much more than was strictly necessary. Each time Harry got close enough to smell the sharply herbal kick of Severus’ aftershave, and each time Severus was so still he didn’t even breathe.

Dessert was one of Severus’ guiltier pleasures; an incredibly rich tiramisu. “An Italian end to a very French evening.”

Severus’ perked up at the sight of it in his cut crystal bowls, his hand drifting toward the spoon before the bowl was on the table.

Harry was smiling as he took the first bite of his dessert, watching Severus savour every mouthful. As always, Severus was impervious to Harry’s flirting, but Harry was transfixed by the simplest of gestures. Severus’ hands were fascinating, as they held the little spoon as carefully as a glass stirring rod. It was so rare for Harry to see him like this, his face relaxed in bliss.

“Are you feeling well, Harry?”

Harry resisted the urge to lay his cool hand against his flaming face. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You’ve worked too hard today.” Severus tsked at him; he was always trying to wrap Harry up in cotton wool, as if he were a rare and fragile vase. Every time Harry let Severus indulge him like that or spoil him, he moved farther away from ever being considered Severus’ equal.

“Wait here, Severus. I’ll get your present.” Though Harry got him a present every year, Severus was always surprised.

Harry put the present directly into his hands and pulled his chair closer to Severus’ while he unwrapped it.

“It wasn’t expensive, was it?” Harry tried not to roll his eyes. Severus said he didn’t want presents every year, but when it was clear that he would receive them whether he wanted them or not, he imposed a spending limit on any gifts Harry were to buy him. Harry thought it was ridiculous and resolved that, as soon as he was eighteen and in full legal control of his vaults, he would buy Severus the most ridiculously extravagant birthday present he could find. Perhaps a diamond studded wand holster.

“No, it’s under the limit; you won’t have to send it back.”

Mollified, Severus began to peel away the paper by hand, not using a shredding spell like every impatient wizarding child was apt to do. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if Severus saved the wrapping paper somewhere along with his gifts.

Severus’ expression was inscrutable as he looked down at the box of liqueur chocolates, the best money could buy. They were laced with expensive elven liquors and were only available in small boxes, made to order. They were exactly to Severus’ taste; rich and dark, with the bitterness of almost pure cacao offset by rare honeys and sweetened alcohol.

“Thank-you, Harry; they look lovely…” Severus began to package them back up carefully, for he liked to _save_ his treats for exactly the right moment.

Harry stopped him, laying a hand on his wrist. It was simple, but boldly intentional. Severus’ throat worked around a swallow and Harry could have shouted in triumph; it was the first time Severus could not possibly ignore him. “Have one now.”

Severus gently slid his wrist out from underneath Harry’s hand, to fiddle with the red tissue paper. “I _have_ just had dessert, I’d better not overdo it.”

“Nonsense, it’s your birthday.” Harry opened the tissue paper again, and Severus seemed almost embarrassed by the sight of the chocolates; a popular gift amongst couples in pureblood circles, when in the very early stages of courtship presents could not be too extravagant for fear of impropriety.

“I’ll save them, I think.”

“Severus-“ He seemed to shrink away from the sound of his own name. “Come on, _please._ There’s no sense in _saving_ them.” Harry smiled. “Why not just have them _now?”_

Severus was all in a dither and didn’t seem to know whether he should be staying seated or running away. “Best wait ’til later, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to make a glutton of myself, after all-“

“No, _now…”_ And Harry picked one up himself, a smooth oval dusted with pink sugar and filled with berry creme.

“Have as many as you like, of course-“

“No, I won’t have any. They’re yours and I’m not eating them.”

“Then what-“ Severus leaned away as Harry leaned in. Harry would have been hurt if not for the look in Severus’ eyes; panic, and not revulsion. This was nothing more than Severus’ endless anxiety, his crippling worrying over every little thing that never allowed him to simply _enjoy himself._

Harry held the chocolate close to Severus’ lips, so close that he could feel the rapid breaths he was taking through his nose.

“Try one or I’m going to feed you.”

Severus’ hand shot up as the sweet brushed against his mouth. He grasped ahold of the chocolate, disentangling it from Harry’s fingers. In the confusion, Harry’s fingertips brushed against Severus’ mouth and felt his lips, firm with tension. At last, Severus took the sweet and hurriedly bit into it. The top was dented with the pressure of his fingertips, and the pink sugar had rubbed off on their hands. Harry absently licked it up, tasting the sugar-sweet powder with just a hint of sharp berry.

Severus ate the second half and his cheeks were the colour of pink raspberry creme.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Harry picked up a white chocolate and coffee liqueur dome, pressing it into Severus’ hands. “Here, now; have another.”

* * *

“And you’re still not together?” Draco looked at Harry in mock-pity from where he was sprawled in a green leather armchair in their dorm.

“Obviously not. He hasn’t even _kissed_ me; he’s done absolutely _nothing!”_ Harry flopped down on his back, disarraying the coverlet.

“Don’t you think you ought to just give up? He’s clearly not interested, or he’d have done something about it by now.”

“That’s just it; Lord knows I don’t know _why_ I do, but I think he _is_ interested.”

“Your evidence?” Draco’s meaning was clear, he thought there was none. Already he had started trying to coax Harry into _moving on_. But he couldn’t do that, not while there was the smallest chance that things might work themselves out with Severus.

“It’s just a feeling I have. Intuition.”

“If Trelawney ever leaves I’ll recommend you for the post.” 

“Hah Hah.” Harry pulled out his Transfiguration text, ending the conversation. He couldn’t defend himself against Draco’s scoffing, so he wouldn’t try. But he did, however irrationally, think that Severus wanted him. He had no rational _reason_ for thinking so, because Severus certainly hadn’t encouraged him in his belief, but in his soul he was almost certain of it.

* * *

It was pathetic, utterly pathetic. Severus finished his round of alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise stirring, slamming his rod down to the table. He was a grown man, in his own home, and he was hiding in his lab. Hiding from Harry.

The stirring rod sizzled, glowing white-hot as it rested in its ceramic dish. He was ashamed beyond words. Harry sensed Severus pulling away from him; the hurt and loneliness was difficult to conceal with such an expressive face. What Harry needed most, and what Severus had always striven to provide for him, _constancy_ , he had taken away. And all because of his _weakness._

Every day was faced with new dread as Harry’s birthday approached. Severus could no longer pretend that it would never come; Harry didn’t allow him to forget. He was always _touching_ Severus now, always standing too close. It began innocuously enough, though at the time it had seemed anything but. That apparently innocent _staring_ had progressed to ever more determined tortures, and Severus was at his wit’s end.

It was better this way; in his rational mind, Severus knew that. If he had his own way Harry would have been kept in childish ignorance forever; but that was selfish and it wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t possible. That dreaded day _would_ come, and they would be called upon to do their duty. And after that, _well,_ Severus could barely contemplate it.

The stirring rod was cooling, but it was yet too hot to touch. A mad impulse to seize it with his bare hands came upon him, to let it sear into the flesh of his palm like a brand. Severus would endure anything to make himself forget what he would have to do, and what despite himself he- He stopped the thought with all the force of his Occlumency, shuttering it from his own conscious awareness. The crudity of harming himself was unacceptable; Severus preferred the delicate instrument of his magic when he wished to wreak havoc upon his own psyche.

Sharp talons rapped upon an upstairs window, the sound magnified by his wards. The letter was barely prized from the owl’s sharp claws before Severus was wearily pulling on his outer robes. The seal was Albus’; the ripped open stationary only confirmed that Severus had been summoned. The headmaster did not idly write letters to his employees during the weekend, it must be a matter of some importance if Albus would disturb his research.

Severus left without delay and presented himself to the headmaster.

“How quickly you’ve come, Severus! You can’t have tarried long; my, you must have left the very instant you received my owl.” Albus was not behind his desk, but was watching a rather vigorous Quidditch match from the perfect vantage point of his office window.

Severus inclined his head in the barest nod. “You wished to see me; I came. Does that _surprise_ you?”

“I am only surprised that you did not take the _long_ way here, perhaps cut through the forbidden forest? Or even pay Fortescue a visit?”

“If you have something to say, headmaster, you needn’t prevaricate.”

“Something quite disturbing has come to my attention.” Albus still would not look at him; the only clue to his mental state was a tensing of the muscles of his wand-hand.

“Pray tell me, what exactly it _is?”_

 _“_ Harry has been pursuing a relationship with you.”

Albus’ tone was so accusatory that Severus couldn’t help but interrupt, horrified. “ _Headmaster,_ I assure you, I would not think to go anywhere _near_ Harry before his birthday -“

“Severus, you are a singular fool.”

Albus was looking at him now, and looking as if he wondered why Hogwarts employed an idiot to teach. Severus could scarcely believe it. Albus had the sheer audacity to be _disappointed_ that he had not, what? Forced his attentions upon a young man he had raised as his own son? The thought was absolutely sickening.

The headmaster, satisfied that he would not be interrupted again, continued to castigate his potion’s master. “The inevitable has occurred; the boy desires you. And you think it wise to deny him? To delay, to the very last moment, what you could have nurtured at a gentler pace?”

Severus ignored the strange logic of Albus’ words in favour of levelling his own accusations. “And what makes you think he has any _feelings_ for me at all? I don’t know what you’ve heard, what you’ve been told, but it’s all completely _innocent_. He would never, never…”

“Severus, you know young Harry cannot occlude.”

Acute shame washed through him, then. Harry had no aptitude for occlumency or for legilimency and, as much as he needed to learn, Severus shrunk from teaching him. He simply couldn’t forcibly invade the boys mind; it was too violent. But as soon as the gall of shame rose up within him, anger burnt it away.

“Albus, do you _dare?_ I don’t read him. It’s no excuse, _because he cannot occlude,_ what of his privacy?”

Albus’ smile was dreadful, a mockery of kindness. “His privacy? Or your _own?”_

 _“_ You are aware of my position, fully aware of it; I find it repellent. All of it disgusts me, this abhorrent position I’ve been put into is-“

“I don’t believe you. Severus, I simply do not. He suffers without you. And you could ease his suffering, but you let it go _on;_ you allow him to believe you are indifferent.”

“I have never claimed _indifference.”_

“So you will do what you ought’ve done already? You will give in to the boy?” A thousand images, and the ghost of touch upon his skin swelled behind his Occlumency shields; they were fastened down, brutally.

“I will not.”

Albus’ blue eyes were very close, and full of scorn. “Severus, you are playing a very dangerous game. You, an otherwise intelligent man, chooses to fool himself into thinking he can defy a soul bond? Preposterous. This is your _soul,_ Severus. You will shatter yourself into pieces before you truly deny him, for when the times comes you will not be capable of it.”

* * *

Severus could not stop thinking about the headmaster’s words. The weeks wore on and they were still fresh in his mind. There was no question about what he would have to do, he knew that. It was so necessary that it was a duty; there was absolutely no avoiding it. He had known it for years, so how could Albus question his resolve? He would do what was necessary for Harry’s sake, and that was all.

Albus simply didn’t understand, could not. How could _anybody_ understand? Any joy that _others_ could find in a soulmate was inaccessible to Severus, this bond could only be a source of pain for him. He could never enjoy defiling the boy he had raised as his own; Albus was wrong. Harry didn’t need a lecherous old man; he needed security, constancy. Of course, there would come a day when _that_ would all be ruined. But that day would not come a minute sooner than it absolutely had to. Severus’ will would not bend on that point, no matter how many reproachful looks Albus cast him over the dinner table.

Severus’ resolve did not go untested. Harry remained fixed upon his object, though he could not have known how near he was to its attainment.

It was an uncommonly warm spring; hot, even. Exams were over, and the seventh year students were abuzz with anticipated freedom. Freed of their responsibilities, they were hedonists. Their days were spent swimming in the great lake and laying supine upon the grass, their nights were spent clustered around campfires and sneaking alcohol into their dormitories. Severus decamped to the cottage to escape from the end of year mania, and would have found his reprieve there, if it had not been for Harry.

The cottage became a microcosm of all that Severus wanted to avoid; Harry lay about the house in a daze of bliss, doing nothing more taxing than drinking tall glasses of lemonade. Instead of abating, the heat ratcheted up, and Harry was driven out of doors in search of fresh air. Severus took his opportunity to slink out of the humid basement laboratory and install himself in the garden, desperate for the barest hint of a breeze that could rake his hair away from his overheated neck.

Severus was secreted away under the last patch of shade, and so was not immediately sure if he had been noticed. Harry did not appear to have seen him as he crashed into the garden, directing his broom downward in a dive so sharp it was nearly lethal. He surely would not have performed a stunt like that if he knew Severus was watching. But Harry, as always, pulled his broom up at the very last possible second and the only casualty was the grass.

Severus was about to call out a reprimand when Harry, soaked in sweat, pulled his begrimed top over his head. There was nothing Severus could possibly say; how could he object when Harry was in the privacy of his own home? So Severus sat in the shadows, still in his black over-robe, and kept silent. He wilted in the heat; he could feel his hair, limp and greasy round his face and hishot, damp face. Severus never ventured out of doors unless he absolutely had to; he was entirely unsuited to this weather.

Harry, on the other hand, was visibly enlivened by it. Harry basked in the heat like a cold blooded serpent, could lie in it for hours while it warmed his blood and skin. He was so very different from Severus, too good for him by far; Severus felt certain there must have been some _mistake._ Surely the two of them were not suited to one another, surely Harry could find somebody more deserving.

“Severus! I’m surprised to see you out in the garden.” Harry’s eyes were fixed directly upon him; he had been seen. Though Harry didn’t _sound_ surprised at all to find him there; his face was full of mirth and the peculiar joy he found in coming close to gruesome death.

“Well, the cauldrons do not require my _constant_ attention…” Severus stood, intending to leave Harry in the garden.

“Where are you off to?” Harry was at the boundary of Severus’ shade, the sun was still bearing down upon his naked back. Severus averted his eyes.

“Oh, to the laboratory…”

Harry was smiling at him, nearly laughing. “I thought you said the potions would keep?”

“There is always something to do, a way to keep useful.” Severus was inching toward the door, awash with shame.

Harry was unbothered; he did not know shame, could stand half nude outside without the slightest loss of dignity. “A day like today is better for gardening, don’t you think?”

He was right, of course. And Severus could not very well lie and say he did not see the weeds that were creeping into his borders, or the disarray in the herb garden.“Stay out here, Severus; we’ll get the borders done at least.”

Severus cast a look toward the house, plaintively mourning the poor ventilation of underground rooms. He could not very well go inside now without making it clear that he was _running away._ And it would never do for him to lose his composure around Harry.

Harry knew him well enough to take his silence for assent. His smile stretched wider across his face. “And take that blasted robe off, it’s making me hot just looking at you.”

Severus found himself complying; though he detested wandering round in his shirtsleeves, cooling charms could not temper the awful, suffocating heat. “While we’re on the subject, I’d suffer you to put a shirt on. You’ll get burnt like that, and I know how careless you are around the poison ivy.”

* * *

Harry didn’t understand. When Severus stayed in the garden with him all afternoon instead of hiding in the laboratory, Harry hoped it would be the turning point he had waited for. It so happened that it was their last good day before Severus sank into a fit of despondency. He ate less than ever, and would barely talk to Harry. There was not even Severus’ work to rouse him; without the structure of the Hogwarts school day, Severus didn’t to know what to do with himself.

Had Harry pushed too far, too soon? He wouldn’t know if Severus wouldn’t _speak_ to him. Of course, Severus said ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’, but he said little else. Much of his day he spent alone in his room, doing goodness knows what. Sometimes Harry thought of charging upstairs and breaking the door down, filling Severus with pepper-up until he started acting like a human being again.

Draco’s letters weren’t nearly enough to ease the loneliness that replaced his easy, nourishing life with Severus. Was this a taste of Harry’s future, a life where Severus could hardly stand to be near him? Harry wanted to believe that he would be able to release Severus from the obligation of taking him on as an apprentice, and that he could content himself with only the crumb’s of Severus’ affection, but he could not be certain. There was a very real chance that Harry would end up embarrassing himself; would be reduced to _begging_ that, if Harry could not have what he wanted, could they at least go back to the way they were? Would Severus at least _talk_ to him again?

It was the morning of his birthday and Harry could have cried with relief; he would _not_ be spending the day alone. Severus was up and out of bed, buttoned up in his most fearsome teaching robes. He looked like a man condemned as he sat at the kitchen table, waiting for Harry’s cake to cook. Harry had never been so thrilled to see him.

“Good morning, Severus.” He said, hating how tentative he sounded.

Severus forced his face into a smile as he replied. “Happy Birthday, Harry.”

He held his cup of tea in front of him so firmly that it discouraged Harry from attempting to hug him. Severus had clearly been suffering, and would benefit from the contact so much, but Harry hung back. He waited in the doorway as if unsure of his welcome, studying the evidence of sleeplessness about Severus’ eyes.

“Eighteen today.” Harry couldn’t think of anything better to say than to state the obvious, trying his best to keep to safe topics. By the way Severus flinched as if struck, he had not succeeded.

“Yes.” That was all Severus could say, for he turned away abruptly and removed the cake from the oven.

The day passed in a ritualistic enactment of all their old routines. The day’s itinerary was familiar; the strained atmosphere was not. It was nearly unbearable for Harry, though every time he went to the edge of an outburst he pulled back and said nothing; he could feel it, all he had to do was _wait_ and he would know why. Finally, he would know. The secret that Severus kept from him would be revealed; there was nothing else that had ever come between them, that could drive Severus into isolation. Severus often worried, but it was only that damnable _secret_ that could make him panic.

Their situation was ever so delicate. Harry watched Severus, nearly going to pieces before him, and determined that he would not be the one to shatter their fragile equilibrium. Something was happening that Harry couldn’t fully understand, deprived of information as he was; this was no time for rash action. By late afternoon Severus had, on multiple occasions, looked as if he was trying to force himself to speak. Harry waited ever so patiently, though it was _excruciating,_ but each time Severus lapsed back into brooding. Opportunities died and were wasted, and with each forsaken chance Severus was only _more_ strained and uncomfortable.

“Harry…” He startled at the sound of his own name, so unexpected was it.

“Sorry; what is it, Severus?” He looked up from the sofa, watching Severus. He was hovering next to his armchair, clutching a little envelope. Could this be it? His heart began to race, though he did his best to feign disinterest.

“I thought you’d like to open your present now, before it gets late. You have some letters, too.” Harry looked at the pile of letters on the coffee table, the ones Harry had been far too distracted to contemplate.

“Let me have the letters first, then; get them out of the way.”

The first was a dry notice from the Ministry, informing him that upon his eighteenth birthday (a full year past the first maturation) he was now considered a full member of Wizarding society with all the rights and obligations that honour conferred. It was standard fare and rather bland. There was a letter from Gringotts, recognising that upon his graduation from Hogwarts he had no official guardian, granting Harry full control of his vaults. Useful, but nevertheless bland; it was nothing more than was expected. There was nothing in the whole pile of letters that could illuminate what he did not already know.

Severus held out the envelope for him to take; his present. Harry froze in terror when he saw a ticket, petrified that Severus was cutting all ties with him. As quickly as the terror came, it was replaced with joy when he saw that there were _two_ tickets in the envelope. He tipped the contents onto his lap and, pieced together, they spelt plans for a trip to Italy for two and a stay in a country villa.

“Oh, Severus! I don’t know what to say…” Harry was, to his chagrin, on the verge of tears. He was so emotionally bruised that the violent up and down swings of emotion overstimulated. “I’m just so happy you don’t want to shut yourself away anymore! It’s going to be brilliant, I promise. It’s _just_ what we need-“

“Harry, they were meant for you and Draco.”

The only consolation was that Severus was just as unhappy as he was. If he had been _excited_ to send Harry away it would not have been tolerable. “ _Draco._ You think I’d rather take Draco with me? Or do you not want to come…”

“This isn’t at all about what _I_ prefer. Whatever you think now, I ask you to please, consider that you may come to feel differently. You may be _glad_ for the opportunity to take some time out, to have some time to yourself away from here.” Away from me, he meant to say; it was obvious that was what he meant.

Harry stared directly into those black, _suffering,_ eyes. “I am certain that I won’t change my mind. No matter what, I want you to come with me. And don’t say no for my sake, on my behalf.” Harry did not release Severus’ gaze until he finished speaking, and would have said more if there had not been a knock at the door.

Severus near sprang up to answer it, banging his ankle into the coffee table in his haste to reach the door first. Harry remained seated, perplexed. When Dumbledore’s voice rang out above Severus’ furious whispering, Harry slowly rose to his feet.

“Headmaster? Is everything alright?” Harry had never seen Dumbledore outside of Hogwarts before, and his appearance in their little cottage living room was surreal.

“Perfectly alright. I came to offer my congratulations-“ Dumbledore paused as Severus made a peculiar _noise._ “Upon your eighteenth birthday.”

“Thankyou, sir. It’s very much appreciated. Would you stay for some tea?”

Severus was being quite rude, loitering by the doorframe like he wanted to usher the headmaster out, like he was _annoyed_ that Harry had offered him tea. To Severus’ plain delight, Dumbledore refused.

“It’s only a flying visit, I’m afraid. I wanted to come in person with my well wishes and a humble gift.”A gold-wrapped box appeared before Harry, and before he could touch it, the golden shell was shed to reveal a hovering golden snitch. “The very first snitch you caught, my boy. And just a little reminder to my particular favourites of Slytherin house, that courage is a fine thing and ought never to be forgotten.”

“Thank-you, headmaster; I’ll see that I won’t…” Harry was entranced by the nimble, darting orb.

“Headmaster, may I _have a word?”_ Severus gently took Dumbledore’s arm and, before Harry could follow or protest, warded the dining room against listening ears.

* * *

“What do you mean by coming here? Today of all days?” These were Severus’ first words, once the dining room door was safely shut and warded.

Albus was not cowed, of course; Severus’ desperate rage only set him into firmer, stonier rigidity of purpose. “I see no harm in wishing Harry a happy birthday. I was clearly not interrupting, after all.”

Severus was trembling with shackled energy; the candles flicked in and out of life. “No, you were just _interfering._ Again.”

Albus watched the sputtering candles, wondering how this man had been driven into such adolescent displays of accidental magic. “This has weighed heavily on your mind for some time, Severus. Don’t prolong the torment; simply _get it over with_ and you’ll see that I am right, that there was nothing at all to worry about.”

“You are a fantasist. You don’t go _near_ reality.” Dumbledore liked a nice bit of theatre; a golden snitch, a grand feast, but he had no regard for the quiet pains of others. Of little weaknesses, Dumbledore was absolutely intolerant.

“You look like you need some help, Severus, and I’d be happy to give it to you. Harry looked quite distressed, in fact, upon my arrival, and I mean to offer my assistance. So tell me, what _was_ it that brought such a hearty young man to the brink of tears? Hm?”

Severus would have been ashamed of how he hurt Harry if he were not trying to soothe, pre-emptively, a far greater betrayal. “He doesn’t understand why I think it best if he goes away- _after;_ he thinks he’ll want to stay _here._ It’s preposterous, of course, but he simply won’t see sense. He doesn’t understand what a _gift_ it will be-“

“Severus, I can hardly believe what I am hearing. You are fully aware of what befalls those who would break a fully realised, _consummated_ soul bond.”

“These bonds are unbreakable, Albus.” Severus could say it with absolute conviction, _the soulmate bond is unbreakable,_ for he had spent countless long hours researching _any_ way to free Harry.

“I am aware. I speak of a forsaken bond; a bond that is spurned, rejected. You know that, at best, the both of you would live only half a life. There would be little else left but misery.”

Severus smothered a bitter laugh; the situation itself was miserable.

Albus smiled at him indulgently, as if Severus were his own wayward son. “Calm yourself, Severus. I dare say it won’t come to that. All I ask is this; do what you must, _tell the boy,_ and let him make his own decisions. If he wishes to stay, do not force him to leave.”

 _All I ask;_ indeed.

When Albus finally left, and the door was safely shut behind him, Severus had to quiet his nerves before he could return to the living room.

As soon as he saw Severus; blank anduncommunicative once again, Harry’s face fell. Severus retreated to his armchair and chewed upon the inside of his cheek; this was the perfect moment to tell him all, but Severus found that he could not do it. Harry was so desperate for answers, and was being denied yet again.

Harry was throwing up and catching his snitch, Albus’ patronising reminder that he ought to be _brave_. Did Harry mean to spur Severus into action through its display, or was it for his own benefit?

“I’m not _with_ Draco, by the way.” Harry appeared alarmed by whatever he saw on Severus’ face, and hastened to explain. “If that’s why you thought I’d want to go on holiday with him to an _Italian Villa._ There’s nothing between us at all, so don’t think it’s a reason not to come yourself.”

Severus could say nothing. He had often lamented that Harry would not be free to choose his own partners, to take lovers without the spectre of their bond hanging over him. To hear Harry deny being romantically involved with Draco did not lessen the weight of his guilt, it only reminded Severus how much of Harry’s adolescence had been tainted already by the poisonous influence of the bond. They were caught up in the machinations of an unsympathetic universe, unable to do anything but bend to its will. No matter how much better it would be for Harry to share his life with someone like Draco, no; he was shackled to Severus.

When Severus made them tea with the last of Harry’s birthday cake, he watched the sun descend through the kitchen’s latticed window. How could he serve Harry his cake, as Severus had done since Harry was two years old, and then tell him that the rest of his life was not his own? He couldn’t, it would be vulgar in the extreme. The late summer sun was fading; shadows were creeping across the lawn. The day was nearly over anyhow, so did it have to be _today?_

No, they would have one last nice day.

So it was, a birthday as much like all Harry’s others as Severus could make it. But come morning, his task was no easier. He felt the ragged edges of the unfulfilled bond like an open wound in his soul; it is only knowing the cause that makes the feeling halfway bearable. The pain through his magical core must be confusing to Harry, a distressing sense of loss with no known cause. The bond, kept in peri-fulfilment, strained for its completion. And Severus still could not even _tell him_ of its existence.

They were too close to be strangers, for the bond to be nothing more than the dullest throb of loss; a subtle pining for something unnameable. But it was their closeness that made Severus’ task so impossibly difficult. James Potter was too Machiavellian by far for a Gryffindor. For years Severus had pondered over the conundrum of _why_ Potter, who had always detested Severus, would willingly sign his only son into Severus’ care? The idea that Potter might have _approved_ of a connection between them was laughable. But it was all clear now, at the eleventh hour. The bond was due to be consummated imminently, and Severus was certain he could _not_ do it.

Severus looked longingly at the cabinet housing what little liquor he kept at home. He was very careful around alcohol, as a rule, but now he wished for an easeful oblivion; something to dampen the sting of his thoughts. He stayed in his armchair, drinking nothing stronger than his tea. It would not do at all to drink himself into carelessness. The thought that he might, in his drunkenness, _frighten_ Harry was utterly horrifying.

* * *

There was something quite seriously wrong with Severus. Harry’s heart _ached_ to see him like this, and to be unable to help! He was so clearly trying to pretend that there was nothing wrong, when his spirits lowered with each passing minute. Harry made him tea, just how he liked it; there was no improvement. He couldn’t be distracted with conversation, barely registering that he was being spoken to. Harry went to fetch some chocolate, to see if that could perk him up, and returned to an empty living room. There was the sound of footsteps upon the stairs, and then the bang of Severus shutting himself in his room.

Just as Harry felt himself on the brink of despair, the warm evening sun glittered against the gold of the snitch. It was resting on the mantlepiece, where Harry set it down last night; it recalled to him Dumbledore’s urgings about _courage_ , that had so upset Severus. It went against Harry’s every instinct to surreptitiously consult the headmaster about Severus’ private affairs, when privacy was so dear to him, but there was nothing else to be done.

Harry tossed the floo-powder into the fireplace, and to his surprise was immediately admitted into Dumbledore’s office.

“It saddens me greatly to see you here, Harry.” Dumbledore stood beside his fireplace, as if he had been waiting.

“So you know what’s going on? You can help me? I’ve tried _everything_ I can think of but he just won’t _talk_ to me-“

There was a hand at his shoulder then, that steered him into one of Dumbledore’s plush chairs. A hot, herbal tea was pushed into his hands and, for once, he was grateful for the lemon drops.

“You were right to come here. It’s time you were- _made aware_ of what Severus cannot, evidently, bring himself to disclose.”

Harry’s hand shook, rattling the teacup against its saucer. “Is he alright? He’s not _dying_ or-“

Dumbledore chuckled, uncaring that his mirth was wholly inappropriate. “Severus is perfectly alright. He chooses to suffer needlessly, as is his prerogative; but no, he is not unwell.”

Harry’s relief couldn’t stem the adrenaline; his hand did not steady. “Then _what_ is it? Don’t you think I have a right to know?”

“If it had been my choice, you would have been told long ago. Severus did not think it- _wise,_ to relieve you of your ignorance. Though I disagreed, it has not been my place to intervene.”

“Until now that he’s no longer my legal guardian, do you mean?”

Dumbledore smiled as if Harry had said something very quaint. “Until now that Severus has neglected his duties, forcing my hand. This would have been far kinder coming from Severus, but I won’t prolong your wretchedness; you are the final horcrux, Harry.”

Harry shot up from his seat, unconsciously staggering toward the fireplace. He needed to go _home_ with an urgency he had never before felt. “You have to destroy me. That’s why Severus can’t…it’s what he couldn’t tell me?”

Dumbledore was still seated; there was no shock in this for him, he had only to watch events unfold. “Harry, my boy; you needn’t be _destroyed,_ as you put it.”

Dumbledore waited for him to request more information, for Harry to follow him down the tidily planned pathway of revelations.

“While there are Horcruxes left intact, Riddle can return.”

“The horcrux will perish; you will not.”

Harry remembered the blackened desk, the bloodied diary, Severus wielding the sword of Gryffindor. Harry’s hand strayed to his scar, to Riddle’s mark on his body, and imagined Severus being forced to wield the sword against him. Bile rose up in his throat, though he could have laughed at himself. Not half an hour ago, Harry thought _tea_ could help Severus.

“How, then? How will we destroy it?” How much would be left of him, when it was gone?

“It’s nothing so bloody as you fear, my boy. You’re in the most fortunate position, fate truly smiled upon you in this, for your death and suffering are entirely unnecessary. The horcrux is lodged in your soul, it feeds upon your life-essence as a parasite feeds; it relies upon you, though it is _not_ you.”

“And if it could no longer _feed_ upon me, it would perish?”

“There would be nothing left of it at all. You would be free of Riddle, completely. Never again would his spectre shatter your peace.”

“What’s Severus _waiting_ for?” Harry was hyper-aware of his scar, unsure if he were imagining the sickening, unnatural heat that burrowed beneath his skin. “You should have told me _years_ ago!”

“I commend your eagerness, Harry. In truth, yes, our task could have been accomplished last year, when your full magical inheritance settled upon your seventeenth birthday.”

“Then why _wasn’t_ it?”

Dumbledore sighed, quite theatrically; he had long awaited someone to commiserate with. “Severus thought it _prudent_ to wait until your eighteenth birthday, the very boundary of safety.” The disapproval was clear in Dumbledore’s voice. “And now, we are _late._ The year between the seventeenth and eighteenth birthday is the full wizarding maturation. We are wearing on _past_ it now. We are well overdue. And the longer this is left unfinished, the steeper will be your decline.”

“ _Sir,_ tell me what must be done and I’ll do it; right away!”

“You must consummate your relationship with Severus.”

Harry would not blush and stammer like a little boy; he squared his shoulders and sat down again, keeping his back straight. Dumbledore’s blue eyes bore into his own with all the force of legilimency and Harry knew questions were superfluous. “I see that you’re perplexed as to why, correct?”

Harry inclined his head in the stiffest of nods.

“The two of you are soulmates; it is for this sole reason that you will survive being Riddle’s horcrux, it is why your parents entrusted your care to Severus.”

The elation that he would have felt at the news, once, mocked him in his anguish. “Severus isn’t happy at all, is he? He- oh god, he’s been _dreading it.”_

Of all the things Harry thought would be revealed as Severus’ most burdensome secret, he never expected this. The knowledge brought with it a sense of a suffocating, oppressive atmosphere. Harry had always been deeply attuned to Severus’ emotions, profoundly affected by his moods; now that he knew there was a rational basis for it beyond simple empathy, he could readily intuit Severus’ devastation. And what was the _point_ of it, all that suffering? It was worse than useless. Did Severus think this was protecting him, when it was no good for either of them?

Dumbledore lay a papery, thin hand upon Harry’s own. “He has raised you as his own son, though we both knew the risks to his mental state. Understand, Harry, that it is _highly unusual_ to be called upon to raise one’s soulmate. It is unprecedented. He could not distance himself from you, though I requested that he do so on multiple occasions. Tell me, would you have preferred to be educated at Beaubaxtons? To not be permitted to return home for your holidays?”

“No… I would have _hated_ it.”

“You see all the difficulty of Severus’ position, then? The two of you are, simultaneously, too close and not close enough. These bonds are tricky things; they do play with the mind so.”

“What happens _after,_ to us? We’ll be bonded? Will he resent me-“

“Harry, these worries are not productive; they may very well be the product of the instability of your bond. It has been straining for fulfilment for far too long, now you have pushed yourselves to the very limit of endurance. You must focus on your _object;_ the destruction of Riddle’s horcrux. There will be no more room for _his_ soul when the two of you are one, when your souls are joined into their natural whole.”

* * *

Severus sat in his room, in the cold and the dark; alone. It had been days of this, of what Severus himself knew was utter foolishness. He could only imagine Albus’ ire at his selfishness. Would Albus stoop to the imperious curse, he wondered, though he had never had need of it before? Albus’ own machinations were too effective to resort to such crude measures.

But Severus had tried to do it, tried so hard that he almost longed for the imperious, that blessed negation of all responsibility. He sat and struggled with himself but was unable to break his own heart. If revealing the true nature of their relationship to Harry would be the most difficult thing Severus would ever have to do, it was only his own fault. He could have made things easier for the both of them, after all. Instead, he had insisted on greedily assuming a parental role, interfering in each stage of Harry’s development so that every one of Harry’s memories would now be tainted by Severus’ pernicious influence. Harry would surely come to look upon his childhood as the cruellest of lies, a facade of safety; all along, Severus had known what was coming.

When Severus heard the door slam shut he expected that it was Albus. Had the headmaster’s patience finally worn thin enough for him to resort to force? It had only been a matter of time, though Severus had expected the old man would take longer to break. But Severus heard the unmistakable step upon the stairs; it was a quick, purposeful clatter of shoes upon wood, far too rapid for a man of Albus’ age. It could only be Harry of course. Instead of taking the right turn to his own room, the steps grew louder. So this was Albus’ latest ploy; guilt. The door was neither warded nor locked; Severus’ one admission that Harry had a right to his company. Though he hadn’t locked the door, Severus’ head snapped up in surprise to see Harry crash into his room without knocking.

“I was expecting Albus, to be quite honest.”

Harry just stared at him as you would stare at a patient with no hope of recovery. Severus looked awful, of course, with shadowed eyes and his shirt dishevelled. He must be quite the sight, indeed, hiding away in his cold, dark room with the heavy, dead air. Harry wrenched open the curtains and the windows, letting in the grey light left after sunset. The faintest hint of gold was visible as the sun dipped behind the hills.

Severus shielded his eyes by turning his face toward the shadows, hiding it against the headboard. By degrees, Severus adjusted and he soon returned to anxiously scanning Harry’s face for signs of emotion. Why was he here? Why _now?_

“I think the headmaster’s fed up with trying to make you see sense.”

“So you know, then; he’s told you.” It wasn’t a question; there could be only one reason for _betrayal_ to have writ itself over such naturally pleasant features.

“Yes, Severus; he has.” The smothered anger in Harry’s voice made him recoil physically, as if he should have expected _understanding,_ of all things. Severus barely understood himself.

“You’re upset. Of course you are; you have a right.”

“ _Upset…_ That all along, _that’s_ what you’ve been dreading? That horrible thing you can’t even talk about? It’s that we’re _soulmates_.”

Severus wanted to look away but his whole posture was locked, forcing himself not to. “Yes.” It was a matter of fact affirmation, spoken with great effort.

“Why didn’t you, at least, _tell me-“_

 _“_ And _when_ was I supposed to have told you? When you were _four?_ When you started Hogwarts? When-“

“When I started practically _throwing myself_ at you? And you just let me go on, making a fool of myself!”

His delicate plans were all in tatters now. All of his hopes, foolish though they _were,_ of sparing Harry pain were dashed to pieces. Harry would never understand how insidiously the bond had worked upon him; he had never been allowed the luxury of knowing life without it. He had been forced to live at the knife-point of humiliation.

“You didn’t- it was _my fault…_ You were only- _confused-“_

 _“_ I’m _confused._ I don’t think so, Severus.” Harry was coldly sarcastic; the anger ripped through all his valiant attempts at self-control. A bond such as theirs, stronger than their own wills, would no longer tolerate the masking of emotion.

“And what have you been doing while you’ve been up here, hiding from me?”

Harry’s voice was shrill with outrage. Severus made no move to stop him uncovering what he had hidden so poorly, in such haste. Harry tore at the covers until he found Severus’ secret cache; he had been tormenting himself with a stack of their photo albums. The uppermost book was opened to a slow-moving photograph of himself at three years old, with Severus pushing him on a swing. These were all albums of his childhood before Hogwarts; when Severus had been Harry’s whole world, and Harry was still full of un-besmirched innocence.

“They were the best years.” The best years. Severus truly believed that. It was a truer calm than he had ever known and was better than anything he expected to receive from the future.

Harry, in a fit of repulsion, gathered up the books and dropped them to the floor with a heavy crash that made Severus wince.

“Is _that_ how you still see me? Well; take a good look, Severus, because I’ve changed an awful lot!”

Severus’ eyes opened wide with horror as Harry blotted the phantom of his infant self from his mind. There was none of the reverence Severus held for the past, only a youthful hunger for the future, for pleasures sure to come. He struggled his shirt off, tossing it atop that precious pile of albums like a shroud. Severus plastered himself to the headboard as more and more bare skin was revealed, just as he cowered away from a bright light. It was almost more than he could bear.

“Don’t look away from me, Severus…” Harry plead with him, climbing onto the bed to kneel before him; Harry grasped his hand, beseeching. “I’m not a child anymore.”

“I can’t- I _can’t-“_

Harry dropped Severus unyielding, claw-like hand as if it burnt. Severus’ eyes screwed shut as he physically shrank away. His distress was only matched by Harry’s own; it was as if, in their proximity, their emotions fed on the other’s, intensifying them in a vicious feedback loop.

“I’m so _repulsive_ you’d rather kill me than have sex with me?”

Snape’s eyes snapped open at the mention of death; terror seized him. It was unthinkable that Harry should die. It was even more unintelligible to Severus’ than the notion that Harry, of all people, should lack confidence. “No, no… You’re not- I know we must, but we’ll get it over with and we needn’t speak of it again. You’ll see no more of me than you wish-“

Severus could not even comfort him adequately; tears shone at the corners of Harry’s eyes. This was his fate, then; to wound Harry and be incapable of soothing. Not for the first time, he wondered if fate had considered _Harry’s_ welfare at all in tying the two of them together.

“I didn’t want it to be like this…. _A chore._ ” The implication was clear; there was no way Severus could mistake his meaning. What a poor, benighted thing Severus had made of him.

As if Harry’s anguish and insecurity dissolved the barriers that held back truth Severus, in a low voice, confessed; “It would be easier if I just had to grin and bear it.”

Harry recaptured Severus’ hand to guide it to his torso; it was an adult chest now, full-ribbed with tapered waist and hips.

“I grew up and you didn’t even _notice_.”

Harry was determined that he would notice, now; and perhaps Severus did want to forget that he had ever held this boy so easily in his arms, had ever gazed into his infant face and swore he would never hurt him. Harry brought Severus hand up to trace the length of his sternum; though the hand under his own shook with emotion, Severus did not rip his wrist from Harry’s grip. Instead, Severus allowed himself to be guided, simply feeling the smooth and unmarked skin beneath his fingertips.

Severus remembered applying bruise salve and healing ointments to his Quidditch injuries, healing them so carefully that he was entirely without scars. It was uncomfortably close to these bucolic memories and Severus keenly felt the danger of their becoming _tainted._ But this was the first time that Severus’ hands had ever _lingered,_ the first time Harry had been touched by him without reason, voluntarily.

Harry freed Severus’ wrist. After a moment of self-conscious indecision Severus, of his own will, began to caress the point above Harry’s palpitating pulse. The tips of his fingers spread out across Harry’s throat in a fan; they did not clutch or grasp but simply rested there. The touch was reverent rather than covetous; Severus still thought he had no right to it.

If Albus were to believed, he had more right to it than anyone in the world, that there was truly nobody else that Harry wanted. And yet, Harry’s forehead still burnt with the brand of his parent’s murderer, in what had become for Severus a symbol of his own inadequacy.

“That you let that _thing_ stay there, inside me; the thought of it makes my skin crawl, I want it gone!” Severus could sense the roiling magic he recognised as the Dark Lord’s own. Harry’s scar throbbed as if alive, like the dark and foreign soul was battling for primacy within him.

“That is my one regret, that you’ve had to live with _him_ for longer than you ought’ve.”

Severus’ fingertips pressed unconsciously down, a firm pressure now. Severus needed to feel Harry’s hot-blooded pulse as physical confirmation of his continuing to live. It was only the press of Severus’ hands upon the trembling pulse that quelled his choke of panic; it would have overtaken him otherwise.

Riddle’s mark was the one scar Severus had not been able to heal, though not for lack of trying. He could still barely look at it; it disturbed him so greatly that Harry had always kept it well-covered by a thick fringe of hair. Harry didn’t bother with concealment now.

“You should have done it _years_ ago, I’d have had you, even then. It’s always been nothing but you; you’re the only thing I’ve ever loved.”

Severus pulled him into a close embrace, his arms tight around his back. Harry would have been delighted if it were not a means of avoiding his earnest stare. Harry was still tense with distress, so unlike his usual pliant reaching for ever more closeness.

“I’d rather see you with someone else.” Though Severus often expressed that sentiment, he had never succeeded in persuading Harry to make his life elsewhere and could, in truth, not even persuade himself; for even as Severus claimed he wanted him to go, his arms locked together across Harry’s shoulders.

“Really? Because I think you’re lying; you can only say that because you know it won’t happen.”

Harry had told him often enough that he would never leave; Severus should know it with absolute certainty, it he were inclined to trust the trickster magic of the bond. But Severus had never been given reason, even to seriously _contemplate_ , Harry being with anyone else; their union had been inevitable since before Harry’s birth. There was, beneath all of Severus’ evasions, a substrate of confidence that they would never be parted.

Harry dared to kiss the space beneath Severus’ ear, where his face was cradled against Severus’ neck. Severus did not push him away and, as Harry inhaled the scent of his skin, an irrepressible shiver vibrated through his entire frame. Not stone, after all, and not a machine either; he was startlingly human.

Harry leant back and Severus let him go. Harry, without hesitation, set to work upon the buttons that held the shirt closed, pulling the shirt-tails from Severus’ trousers to reach the final third. It was unacceptable, then, for Harry to feel the cotton of Severus’ shirt against his chest instead of warm and living skin. If Severus thought better of stopping him, it was because there could be no stalling now; it was too late for that.

Harry kissed whatever he could reach and nothing was denied him. He was allowed to act from instinct alone. Severus held him tight around the waist, but that was all. It was permission for Harry to sate himself with running his tongue over as many jagged-edged scars as he pleased. Severus could not bring himself to stop it. Harry tested his new liberty until his lips grazed Severus’ jaw, dragging over roughened skin. Severus suppressed a sob of intense self-hatred.

Harry needn’t beg for a kiss; his neediness was so close to begging already, that it was up to Severus to take pity upon him and offer it freely.

But Severus wore the shuttered, dimmed expression of somebody trying to will their mind away. He was too pre-occupied in cursing his own traitor-flesh to heed tacit pleas. The colour was high on Severus’ cheeks and, when Harry moved against the irrefutable evidence of his arousal, his face twisted in self-disgust.

“No, no… it’s fine. Don’t pull away.”

Harry, with incredible tenderness, fit his mouth over Severus’; the tenderness and the extreme chasteness of it soothed him, calming his fit of self-loathing. Harry prolonged that closed- mouth kiss for longer than Severus thought he would be able to stand. When they parted, Severus’ chest was heaving with the exertion of his self-control; it was a fragile prison, now.

When Harry stood to remove his trousers he wasted no time, lest Severus sink into another fit of conscience. But he needn’t have worried. Severus, mesmerised by his every movement, could not look away. Harry had no idea what Severus saw when he looked at him; he seemed to have been made of Severus’ most shameful fantasies, as if fate had manifested him directly from Severus’ subconscious.

This was a torture, truly; why could Harry not have been plain? Perhaps he would have been able to master himself in the way he ought’ve, he may have been able to stand the sight of his own face if there was no reason to imagine his own eyes blackened with lust. When the final scraps of clothing were gone he pulled Harry firmly against him, unaware of the way his hands dragged over Harry’s body.

“I’ll do it.” He promised, though his hands still shook. His mind was swiftly losing the battle with his tumultuous, over-taxed soul. “To get that _creature_ out of you…”

As if there was something there to _hear_ Severus’ words, Harry’s scar began to burn _._ There was a swell of dark magic writhing beneath his skin, absolutely unmistakable.

“It hurts” Harry ground out through gritted teeth, as he clutched at his forehead.

“Your scar?” When Severus gently pried Harry’s fingertips away from his forehead, they both saw the thin smear of fresh blood. The scar was be livid red, like a new wound. An inexcusable need to possess welled up within Severus at the sight of it, a yearning to cast the Dark Lord out of him forever; Severus’ will was nothing in the face of the bond, now.

“Yes, it hurts…” The pain, mixed with almost-painful yearning, cast Harry into a sort of delirium. He clung to Severus and ground against him, insensate. Severus could hardly recognise himself; _when_ had he become the sort of man who could, without restraint, clutch at Harry like that? The sight of his own hands on the perfect, tanned skin made him sick with disgust.

Harry was barely cognisant of Severus removing his own trousers and letting the open shirt fall from his shoulders to the floor; he seemed to only understand the relative proximity of their bodies, resenting every inch that came between them. With worshipful care, he lowered Harry onto his back. As if gentleness could be an excuse for depravity.

Better to get it over with; he would be perfunctory, respectful. He _would_ master himself, for anything less was unacceptable. He willed himself to be restrained and passionless, for their coupling to be dutiful and _pious_ in its observance of necessity. Necessity was a thin band of acceptability; anything more and anything less, Severus forbade himself.

Harry clutched at his arm in panic when he leant over to the nightstand, only relaxing against the pillows when he saw that Severus would return. He had no choice but to give in now; Harry was in such obvious torment as Riddle gave his last valiant struggle toward survival. Albus had been right, of course; he never should have left it this late.

The sound of the jar opening was loud in the quiet room, even above the clattering noise of Severus’ heartbeat thudding against his eardrums. Severus would have, like a coward, prepared Harry with a spell to save himself the torture but he knew the magic was inadequate; if he resorted to shortcuts to save his own conscience, Harry would be in pain. So Severus’ only real option was to bend one of Harry’s legs up toward his body and penetrate him with one of his fingers, liberally coated with the thick potion of his own creation. Severus tried not to notice how hot his body was, how tight.

“It’ll be alright… it’ll all be over soon…” Severus kept up the string of platitudes, unsure if Harry even heard them. He wouldn’t keep still on the bed, kept grasping at Severus’ hand and shoulders, goading him. He has no idea at all, no idea, Severus tried to remind himself. It’s innocent, completely.

When Harry gasped at the addition of a second finger, Severus had to bite his lip to quell a groan. That wouldn’t do, at all. As much as it tested him, there was no way Severus could hurry this, it was so essential. He had _promised_ himself that he wouldn’t hurt Harry. Severus was so careful, just as he was with a volatile potion.

Harry was nearly ready, torn between pain and pleasure. The dark magic was so thick in the air that it felt almost corporeal, as if there were a third presence in the room. The hint of malevolence sent Severus into a cold sweat; Albus had always suspected that to channel dark magic, even once, stained the soul. He was ruined; how could joining his magic with Harry’s ever be something _good?_

“Severus…” The sound of his name, in that tone, was startling. “Don’t torture yourself. Please, just…”

Harry was pulling him near, until Severus lay over him. Now, then. It was only the thought that Harry was in pain from the infernal scar, and that Severus had a _duty_ to relieve it, that allowed him to act at all. Severus hated himself with an intensity that his enemies never could match, he was the one who thwarted himself at every turn. Now, being ruined, he would inevitably ruin the only good he had ever known. So it had always been.

Even as he coated himself in the potion, kneeling between Harry’s legs, he despised himself. “If I could have spared you this, I would have. Please believe me, Harry…”

Harry never had tolerated Severus looking away from him, and he was caught now in the bright beam of his eyes; they shone jewel-green in the moonlight, a changeable colour unseen in Muggles. Severus felt sick then because, despite it all, he was hard and aching; to Severus’ shame, he was _enjoying himself._ How perverse that, even in pain as he was, Harry was more beguiling to him than anyone else on Earth.

“I want you to. Severus, _now, please-“_ Harry’s entreaties were lost as Severus breached him. Neither of them could speak under such a rush of sensation. With each push forward Severus felt his magical core reach further into Harry’s, enmeshing them irreversibly together.

Harry’s back arched as he was racked by the transformative onslaught of Severus’ magic, as it took the place of Riddle’s parasitic monstrosity. Riddle was being burnt away to nothing.

Harry could not have said a word and Severus was nearly grateful for it. Harry was quiet save for the rapid panting of his breaths, and the faintest groans of pain. He always had been stoic; even when, in his third year, he broke his leg falling from a broom. Any one of the other students would have screamed, cried; Harry was silent.

When Severus body was flush against Harry’s and there was nothing more to give, the metal-tang of Riddle’s magic died from the air. All that was left it of it was concentrated in a garnet-red drop of blood that crossed Harry’s pale brow. It mingled with Harry’s sweat until its edges bled into watery pink.

Severus would have wiped it away if he was able to move at all; he was immobile, though his whole body shook with immense effort, an indescribable electric impulse along his every nerve. He determined that he would not give in and would keep his sanity until the very end. Harry didn’t care, however, about Severus’ saintly convictions; he wanted more and more of Severus. Nothing seemed to satiate him. And Severus was powerless under every little scrap of attention, greedy for even the merest drag of Harry’s fingertips across his cheek.

It was terrifying, that Severus hadn’t even _realised_ he was moving until the pleasure sank in. Where was his reserve now, what of caution? It was gone and he could not grasp it again; it was impossible, when all he could think about was _Harry._ Harry clung to him, gasping in his ear until all his famous control was in tatters. Severus was lost.

Severus was moving faster now; long, quick drags of his hips. He just couldn’t help it now, when Harry was urging him on, imploring him to go _faster._ This wasn’t what he wanted, it had none of the perfect restraint that would have justified this in Severus’ eyes. It was the antithesis of restrained. But what was another sin, amongst all his others?

As each barrier fell it was impossible to re-erect. He had never wanted it to be like this, but hadn’t this been exactly why he was so afraid? That he knew, somehow, how much he would _want_ it? And it was impossible not to want Harry; he was so perfect, _perfect…_

Once he began to kiss Harry he couldn’t stop. He had no power to stop any of it; the passion he tried to spurn, the sex, the _intimacy._ All Severus could do was kiss Harry in between hasty breaths of warm hair; slovenly, ungracious kisses with no pretence of paternal care. And Harry matched every kiss with the joyful, ecstatic abandon Severus had never known; it was the pure and exhilarating pleasure one can only experience upon being released from pain.

It could have happened no other way; when Harry convulsed at the zenith of his pleasure, crying out as he came, Severus was dragged along with him. He had not given himself permission to try and _prolong_ their coupling, but he had done exactly that. At least he was not such an animal now that he would collapse all of his weight onto Harry; he made the effort of easing gently out of him, only giving into the weakness of his muscles when he was laid down beside him.

* * *

Harry knew he had slept, or had he simply lost consciousness? There was no way to tell, but it had not been for long. The tumult of that evening was so unlike anything Harry had experienced; he could never have expected _this._ His mind reeled with the implications of it all; the bond, Riddle…

 _“Severus?”_ He knew he was awake, could hear the alert and measured breaths behind him. He was about to turn around to look at him, but Severus’s fingertips pressed against his back, stilling him.

“Go back to sleep, Harry. It’s all over now.”

Had Severus slept at all? He sounded exhausted to his very soul, broken down completely. Harry could _sense_ him laying there, behind him. Something about it worried him.

“Severus, you’re not alright.” Harry was going to sit up and turn around to look at him; he would be easily visible in the moonlight, but Severus once again stopped him with a hand at his back.

Harry reached behind him until he found Severus’ arm, grasping his hand and pulling Severus into an embrace.

Severus didn’t answer him. “What’s wrong?” Harry whispered.

Severus’ fingertips strayed to Harry’s hipbone and jerked away, as if he needed to remind himself not to touch. They rested upon the sheet instead, that had been hastily pulled up to cover their nudity. It was too hot for it, really; it had turned into a warm and humid night.

“I’ve hurt you.” Severus’ voice was full of his self-loathing and so much _guilt._ Harry saw that there were purple bruises blooming across his exposed hip, perfect ovals where Severus’ fingertips had clutched at him.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing some bruise paste won’t fix.” Harry knew Severus hated to see bruises on him, that he had always hated his scar. Harry had taken to brewing his own salves to keep with his Quidditch gear, unwilling to trouble Severus for a few little knocks and scrapes. The devastation on Severus’ face was far more troubling than those superficial injuries that were so inevitable in sport and life.

Harry could feel Severus’ wet lashes against the back of his neck as he pressed tenderly apologetic kisses into the nape of his neck. It was too tender, too gentle; the kindness was almost excruciating. It was melancholy, as if Severus were saying goodbye.

Harry wasn’t going anywhere; did Severus think that _now_ they could be parted? It was absurd. Harry couldn’t even contemplate it, not now that he was _certain_ Severus wanted him. Severus betrayed himself in every action. Harry took hold of Severus hand again and stroked soothingly up and down his arm. Severus needed reassurance and Harry would give it. He pressed himself tighter into Severus’ arms and let his neck be kissed. Harry could have wept himself with satisfaction as Severus’ babying kisses grew needy and heated. It wasn’t long before Harry felt that Severus was hard again; they were pressed too close together for him not to have felt it.

“You want it again.” Harry meant to encourage him, but Severus tried to extricate himself from the embrace entirely. Harry had to keep him close by refusing to relinquish Severus’ hand. He rubbed little circles into the inside of Severus’ wrist, and slowly Severus stopped trying to pull his hand back.

“I’m sorry, I won’t.” Severus was mortified, disgusted with his own humanity. He tried to keep a polite distance from Harry, but it was no use. There was no distance between their souls now, or their minds; why keep up the pretence that there was any reason to keep a physical distance, also? Severus was still hard when Harry moved back against him, so he did it again, until Severus moaned softly into the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck. Severus could not keep himself still now, shifting restlessly and disarraying the blanket.

“Please, again…” And Severus couldn’t deny him, for there were no excuses left. Harry was no longer wracked with pain from his scar, there was no overbearing duty to dislodge the Horcrux from Harry’s soul. Harry wanted Severus, desired him, and Severus had no choice but to accept it as truth.

So Severus, again, pushed into Harry’s body; still pliantly loose and slick with his own cooling spend. Every one of Severus’ panting exhalations were palpable against his sensitive nape, as was the brush of soft lips against his skin and the hint of coarse hair that fell around Harry’s shoulders. Harry kept Severus’ arm firmly around his waist as he pushed back against him, luxuriating in simply feeling. Severus was slow and relentless in his dedication to giving Harry pleasure, as if to prove to himself that he could occasion something other than pain. At last, Snape’s searching movements connected with that place deep inside Harry’s body, that he had only ever read about. It made him twist and writhe in Severus’ arms as the feeling shot through him; he was barely aware of himself as a discrete entity, apart from Severus. Severus made sure to keep the same angle, varying only the pace as he drove them both to come a second time. When it was over Severus didn’t move away again; they slept enfolded in one another’s arms, a brief span of thoughtless peace.

* * *

When Harry finally, fully awoke, it was to the mid-day sun bearing down across his eyes and a soft, damp flannel against his forehead.

On seeing that Harry was awake, Severus withdrew the cloth, allowing Harry to sit up against the pillows. Just like that night in Dumbledore’s office, the white cotton was bloodied from contact with his scar. This time, the blood was black and dry. Harry had only the dimmest recollection that the scar had bled; the vague impression of sticky warmth across his forehead was secondary to the rearranging of his soul.

“It’s gone.” Severus was dressed again, just as he always was, but looked alarmingly ruffled.

“What’s _gone_?”

“Your scar.”

Harry’s hand fluttered up to his forehead, pressing the spot just beneath his hairline. He found only smooth, even skin instead of a deep and twisted groove. Harry reached for the buttons at Severus’ wrist, opening them until the left forearm was exposed entirely. There was no dark mark. Just like his scar it was gone, as if it never was.

“We’ve done it, then? He’s gone?”

Severus’ smile was grimly satisfied, rather than jubilant. “He’s gone.”

There would be no fanfare, no parties in the streets and no bombastic headlines in _The Prophet._ To the wider Wizarding world, Riddle was long dead; little more than an unpleasant memory. Harry and Severus would be left to their peace and their victory, shared in quiet relief.

“And what are we, now?”

It was fitting, somehow, for Harry to still be so exposed while Severus bared only a clean andunmarked forearm. Harry suspected that the ghost of Severus’ shame would live on in spite of the disappearance of his physical brand, as a weight he would carry forever.

“I fear that I cannot be trusted with you.” Severus’ gaze strayed, once again, to the marks on his hipbones. They were telling bruises, luridly evocative of their own creation. It was nothing that bruise paste wouldn’t fix, but Harry was loathe to erase them.

Severus’ worries, that would once have troubled him so deeply, scarcely touched him at all. All of Harry’s paranoia, the fear of abandonment; they were all gone. He understood now, that Severus’ inability to believe he deserved Harry was of no real threat to their life together.

“We’re bonded, aren’t we…”

Severus had no choice but to answer plainly. “We are. Albus doesn’t think it possible but, though the bond in itself cannot be broken, I can endeavour to make myself scarce. We can test the bond to determine the amount of minimum necessary contact for-“

Harry cut Severus off; he didn’t need to hear the end of that, so obviously rehearsed, speech. Severus was too careful with him, by far.

“You didn’t need to tell me we were bonded, did you? You knew you didn’t need to say it. Can’t you feel how _futile_ it is to deny yourself?”

Harry stretched his hand out, closing the little distance to wrap his fingers about the fresh, new skin where Severus’ mark had been. Harry didn’t even have to try; their magical cores sprung toward each other, melding seamlessly as only twinned souls could. It was easy to feel the bond between them; full and real, joining them together to the exclusion of everything else. There was no space for Riddle to come between them now, just as it should be.

Severus had sagged against him under the profound rushing up of their magic, unable to keep up even his token reservations.

Harry whispered into his hair, breathing deeply of the ever-present scent of smoke. “Just try to leave me, when I know you can’t. I doubt you’d even make it into Hogsmeade; you’d wait on the doorstep like a stray cat until I let you in again.”

“I find that, in my eternal selfishness, I cannot bear to let you go.”

“And you’ll come with me to Italy?” Harry’s sharp, demanding gaze was only softened by a look on Severus’ face he knew well; it was his characteristic, pure indulgence of every one of Harry’s whims. Harry loosened his fingertips from their manacle-grip around Severus’ wrist.

Severus was almost laughing at him, that he could still care so much for a simple trip abroad. Ever since Severus had presumed to invite Draco on Harry’s behalf, the trip to Italy had become a fixation. As if Harry would not get exactly what he wanted, as if Severus’ will had ever borne up under the force of Harry’s demands. “I thought you knew it by now, Harry; I never could say no to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always welcome.
> 
> This work is part of the Snarry AUctoberfest 2020. The creator will be revealed after all works have been posted.


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